


Little Contributions

by DiscordantWords



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen, M/M, Outtakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 30,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11725977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: You know I value your little contributions.Rounding up my Tumblr ficlets and odds-and-ends to keep them all in one place. Some are Johnlock, some are gen, each one stands alone unless otherwise indicated.





	1. Table of Contents

*

1\. **Table of Contents**

2\. **Home Away from Home:** Pining Sherlock, unresolved Sherlock/John.

3\. **Cause for Celebration:** Post-S4, quasi-parentlock, relatively fluffy.

4\. **The Death that Wasn't:** Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock  & Molly in the morgue.

5\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #1:** The lighthearted start to a Blue Carbuncle/Borgia Pearl case subplot that didn't fit the tone of the story I was telling.

6\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #2:** Mycroft reflects on early childhood and his relationship to his siblings.

7\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #3:** Mycroft at Sherrinford.

8\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #4:** Mycroft speaks with Alex Garrideb.

9\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #5:** Mycroft and Sherlock the morning after the Sherrinford debacle.

10\. **(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea Outtake #6:** Alternate take on John discovering Mummy's Facebook page.

11\. **Cleanup in Aisle Four:** Post S4, John encounters Mary in disguise.

12\. **Incentive:** Post-TLD, John talks to Mrs Hudson about her car.

13\. **Suspension of Disbelief:** Sherlock and John watch The X-Files.

14\. **Flight:** A reverse-tarmac scene following the S3 finale.

15\. **Allergies:** John thinks it's just allergies. Sherlock thinks he's wrong.

16\. **Not Unlike Clouds:** Missing scene at the end of TLD. Sherlock finds John after his encounter with Eurus.

17\. **Peas, Please:** Sherlock follows John to Tesco.

18\. **A Hint of Warmth:** John and Sherlock share a moment while chasing a suspect on a foggy night.

19\. **Afloat:** Post-TLD, John finds his little red balloon at 221B.

20\. **Sharp and Sweet and Sour:** Sherlock and John share a first kiss.

21\. **Dreams He Doesn't Have:** Sherlock sometimes has nightmares. An alternate take on a scene from TFP.

22\. **The Abominable Brother:** Alternate first meeting AU. Sherlock shares the flat at Baker Street with Harry Watson.

23\. **Words You Don't Mean:** John doesn't mean it when he tells Sherlock to leave.

24\. **Vows:** Missing scene during HLV. Mycroft visits Sherlock in his holding cell.

25\. **Spoken in Silence:** Post S4. By remaining silent, Sherlock reveals something about the nature of his feelings.

26\. **Guilt:** Molly has a very good reason for wanting to avoid Sherlock's phone call.

27\. **The One to Leave:** Retirementlock. After an argument and fifteen years of silence between them, Sherlock is surprised to find John at his door.

 

This will be updated periodically with new material. 

All chapters stand alone unless otherwise indicated. The (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea outtakes will likely not make much sense unless you've read [the complete story.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9848774/chapters/22100969)


	2. Home Away from Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/162259234791/home-away-from-home)

*

John had bought his house a little over a year after Sherlock stepped off the roof at Barts.

Sherlock had looked up the property records shortly after arriving home, in the strange grey interim between returning to his life and actively resuming it, while he’d been haunting the halls of a flat that had been frozen in time, all of his eclectic belongings still arranged just-so, yet somehow missing the most essential component.

At the time, he’d had no reason to believe John would ever speak to him again.

He’d felt foolish, shamed by his own childish confidence, the unwavering certainty he’d carried that John would be happy to see him. He’d never doubted it, not once, he’d observed John in his grief and had accepted his loyalty as a simple, unassailable fact.

An incorrect deduction. Not his first, and certainly not his last.

He’d pictured his homecoming, had calculated a number of ways it might have gone. None of those ways had involved John being anything less than happy. None of those ways had involved John asking for someone else’s hand in marriage. None of those ways had involved John walking away.

He’d not even had the foresight to imagine John ever leaving Baker Street. Why would he? It was affordable, centrally located. It was home.

But John had made a new home for himself in his absence.

He hated it.

He hated the thought of John living there, far on the outskirts of the city, too far from the pulse of London lifeblood. He hated the cheerful wallpaper. He hated the coordinating colours. He hated that John had gone off and found a new home, without him.

He hated that, somehow, John had become an essential part of _home_ to him. And he’d hated that the feeling, that irrational, ridiculous, maddening feeling, was not at all reciprocated.


	3. Cause for Celebration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/162571382116/cause-for-celebration)

*

Mummy’s birthday appeared on the horizon.

He usually ignored it, the way he usually ignored his own birthday.

Except—

His last birthday had not gone unacknowledged. He’d spent the afternoon in a café, periodically shifting in his seat to take the pressure off of still-tender bruises, an occasional shiver of withdrawal rippling through his system. He’d been tired, and bedraggled, and he’d not even bothered to shave, but he’d also had a large slice of chocolate cake drizzled with raspberry sauce, which had been good, and John by his side, John by his side _willingly,_ which had been better.

And Lestrade had come, of course, and Molly, and Mrs Hudson too. They’d gathered around him at a table that was just slightly too small, knees bumping in a way that was uncomfortable and yet somehow companionable. Someone had put a candle in his slice of cake. And though he’d threatened to use it to burn the entire place down if they didn’t _stop singing immediately,_ he’d actually enjoyed himself. Somewhat.

So he texted Mycroft. And Mycroft ignored his text and called him instead, because he never texted when he was capable of speaking, and eventually they managed to communicate well enough to make arrangements.

They brought a cake.

John brought Rosie, and she smeared frosting on her face in a way that was, inexplicably, considered adorable. Mummy took photographs and cooed and told them all it was the best birthday she’d ever had.

(“If I’d known all it took to impress you was a messy toddler, I’d never have subjected myself to _Les Mis._ Or—and I shudder even at the memory— _Phantom of the Opera,_ ” Mycroft grumbled.)

No one was drugged. No one was shot.

It should have been boring, it should have been utterly intolerable. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t.

And Sherlock looked across the table at John looking back at him, John who was smiling at him with an open fondness he had not seen in what felt like years, and thought: _Oh._ Oh. _That’s why people do this._


	4. The Death that Wasn't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/163651118141/the-death-that-wasnt)

*

He looked very dead.

His face was slack, vacant, smeared with blood. Terribly pale. Her breath caught as she stood over him, worrying at her lower lip. _What if he–-_

"That went well,“ Sherlock said, his eyes snapping open. He sprang into sudden motion, leaping to his feet, swiping at the blood that threatened to run into his eyes. The gurney squeaked against the floor.

Molly jolted back with a small sound of surprise, her heart thundering.

He was pacing, his eyes glittering, full of the kind of manic glee he usually reserved for interesting corpses. He pressed his hands together, tented his fingers under his chin as he walked.

It was hard to believe he’d ever been capable of lying so _still._

"It looked a bit, erm, messy,” she said, muffled an awkward laugh. She gestured vaguely at his his gore-streaked face. He looked like the bloody walking dead, no, the bloody _leaping_ dead, with his dark matted curls flopping wetly against his skull and the sodden collar of his coat sticking to the skin at the back of his neck.

"Unavoidable,“ he said. He stopped pacing, looked up at her. "I’ll need access to a shower.”

"Right,“ she said, leading him towards the doors. "I have a change of clothes. I’ll need yours for. For the. For the, um—”

"For the corpse, yes,“ he agreed cheerfully, and there was something strained in that voice. Something she didn’t want to push too much at, because for all of his bluster there was something fragile about him, and if ever there were a time where he needed to not be fragile, this was it.

"The other things you needed,” she said. “At my flat. I left the bag under my bed, like you asked—”

"We did already establish this, Molly,“ he said, abrupt, distracted, and even that seemed a bit forced, now that she was listening for it. "No need to repeat yourself. You know I hate when—”

They both froze at the same time, the sound of footsteps and muffled voices in the corridor unexpected and growing closer.

"It should be clear,“ she said, a little desperately. "Your brother said he made sure it would be clear. We’re supposed to have ten minutes.”

Sherlock had already reversed his direction, was already sliding back onto the gurney, jerking the bloodied sheet up and over himself. His eyes were very wide, and it occurred to her that she had never seen Sherlock Holmes look _surprised_ before.

She didn’t have much time to think on it, because as they grew closer the voices grew clearer, and her heart plummeted.

"I have to—I just have to—I have to see—"

John.

_John._

"Sir—" the attendant arguing with him seemed to have no luck restraining him. “You cannot just—”

"He’s my friend,“ John said, as if that explained everything.

She looked over at Sherlock with horror, saw only the dark curly top of his head poking out from under the sheet. Now was not the time to freeze. He’d trusted her. She wouldn’t freeze.

She moved to the gurney at the sound of a scuffle immediately outside the morgue doors. There was a slide and a thump that could only be someone hitting the ground. She wondered how many people John had fought past just to make it this far.

She put a hand on Sherlock’s arm, felt the jump of his traitorous pulse. The sheet shifted minutely, stilled. He was holding his breath.

The door swung open, hard, bouncing off the wall. She jumped a little.

John took two steps into the room, blinking, as if surprised to find himself there. He looked at her.

"Molly,” he said, and the expression on his face was utterly crushing.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them until it occurred to her that she _should_ be crying, and then she just let them flow.

She slipped around the gurney, putting herself between it and John, wiped at her cheeks.

"Is that—?“ he asked, and then his knees buckled at her slow nod.

She moved towards him, but he waved her off, gripping the edge of a table to keep himself upright. He closed his eyes, sucked in air through clenched teeth.

"He—” John said. “He—”

"I know,“ she said. She bit her lip. Her eyes had welled up again.

"Did they try—?”

"He’s gone, John,“ her voice cracked a little bit.

He was looking past her, at the sheet. She turned to follow his gaze. There were blooms of blood on the white fabric over Sherlock’s face.

She opened her mouth to say—to say what, exactly?—but he had already straightened up and pushed away from the table. He stepped towards the gurney with his shoulders squared and his jaw set.

"Don’t,” she tried.

He looked up at her, his hand hovering just over the sheet. He was trembling a little bit. She thought it was adrenaline and adrenaline alone that kept him on his feet. There were scrapes on the side of his face, angry red lines against pale skin.

"Don’t,“ she said again. She looked down at the sheet, at the way it draped and clung damply to Sherlock’s face. One breath would give him away.

"He—” John said again. He seemed to have frozen up, his hand still hovering just over the edge of the sheet, his fingers closed over open air. 

"He wouldn’t want you to see him like this,“ she said. Tears spilled over her cheeks and she bit her lip again, looked down. "Please. I wish I hadn't—but—”

John’s hand dropped onto the sheet over Sherlock’s shoulder, but he did not tug back at the edge. Instead his hand patted once, twice, a clumsy half-caress, and then he’d doubled over, his hands on his knees, and he was making a sound that was not quite a sob. All of the air seemed to have gone out of him.

“I’ll take care of him,” she whispered. He gave no sign that he had heard her.

She moved towards him again, and he shrank back from her touch, shaking his head. He straightened up and went out of the room without looking back, his hand clenching at his side. She listened to his retreating footsteps as they echoed through the corridor. 

When she turned back, Sherlock was once again sitting up. The wild-eyed energy had fled him entirely. There was a slump to his shoulders, and something terribly young and bewildered in his face. He reached up, touched his shoulder, ghosted his fingers over the place John had laid his hand.

Molly turned away, sniffed hard, wiped the last of the tears from her eyes. She went out of the room into the hallway, crouched to check on the slumped attendant. He tipped his head up and blinked at her, dazed. John had blackened his eye.

"I’ll call security,“ she told him.

She went down the hall into her little office, retrieved a black duffel bag. Went back through the doors into the morgue, set the bag on the table.

"Change of clothes,” she said. She did not look at Sherlock, kept her voice steady, brusque. “You’ll have to move quickly. Keep quiet.”

He did not respond, and she looked at him, frowned at the lost expression on his face. He was still touching his shoulder. The tips of his fingers were sticky with dried blood.

"You have to move,“ she said, frantic now, feeling her pulse pick up. "If you don’t, it will all have been for nothing.”

That got through to him. He stood up, slipped out of his coat. She turned away as he reached for the bag.

She went to the phone on the wall, picked it up, dialed.

"This is Dr Hooper,“ she said. "We’ve had an incident in the morgue. An attendant has been injured. He’s all right, but he’ll need medical attention. Please send someone.”

She set the phone back in the cradle, took a steadying breath.

“You should tell him,” she said as she turned back. She stopped, put a hand to her mouth.

Sherlock had gone. His blood-stained clothes lay in a neat pile on the gurney, next to the discarded sheet.

She listened for the sound of his footsteps in the hall, but heard nothing.


	5. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate scene from [ Chapter 3 of (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9848774/chapters/22500446), regarding the Black Pearl of the Borgias. It was meant to slip in here:
>
>> "A case," John said. There was something decisive in his tone, overly so.
>> 
>> Sherlock twitched at the sound of his voice, lifted his head. His brain felt sluggish, slow gears grinding together, struggling to turn.
>> 
>> "What?"
>> 
>> "A case, you need a case. What was the last one you took?"
>> 
>> Sherlock opened his mouth.
>> 
>> "See, you need to think about it, which means it's been too long."
>> 
>> John was still crouched on the ground, still gripping his hands. He was smiling, a forced smile, a little tight around the eyes. It was a desperate sort of smile, the kind that said neither-one-of-us-knows-where-to-go-from-here-so-let's-try-this.
> 
>  
> 
> It was ultimately too lighthearted, and totally didn’t fit the tone of the scene, so I cut it and reworked the conversation. John still mentions the Borgia pearl, but it goes no further than that. At this point in the story, John and Sherlock are still failing to communicate properly, and pushing those heavier issues aside to have them banter over a fun case wouldn't have worked out (as much as I enjoyed the banter.)
> 
> I do like this little snippet, even though it didn't fit. Who knows... I may rework it into a new fic one day.

*

Downstairs, the door crashed open. Heavy footsteps on the stairs, moving with considerable urgency.

Sherlock looked up sharply. Lestrade, by the tread, but he always knocked (beholden to unnecessary societal conventions about politeness), always spent the requisite amount of time nattering with Mrs Hudson, never used his key unless it was a life or death situation.

John stiffened up, seeming to reach the same conclusion, and he stood up quickly, dropping Sherlock’s hands, turning towards the door just as Lestrade burst in.

There was no panic on Lestrade’s face. He was out of breath, huffing a little bit, but—smiling?

"You haven’t answered a single text,“ Lestrade said.

Sherlock stared at him.

"The Borgia pearl.”

John snorted with laughter, turned away even as Sherlock rolled his eyes and let out a despairing groan.

"How many times do I have to tell you—"

Lestrade removed a small plastic evidence bag from his pocket, held it up. Something small gleamed within.

"Hang on, is that—"

"Well done, you’ve found it,“ Sherlock cut in.

"Not me,” Lestrade said. “Molly Hooper. You’re not going to believe this.”

"Wait,“ John said. "What?”

"It was in the chicken!“

Sherlock looked at John, who was gaping back at him with an expression so perfectly torn between bewilderment and amusement that it immediately made up for any and all tedium he’d need to endure in finding out the details.

"Explain,” he said.

"She was cooking chicken,“ Lestrade said.

"So you’ve said.”

"A fresh chicken, one of those fancy organic ones–free roving or whatever. Bought it at a farmer’s market yesterday. One of those big roasting birds, yeah? So, from what she tells us, she brought it home, started—you know—preparing it—”

Sherlock amended his mental file on Lestrade to include _no knowledge of culinary arts._

"And she found this! Just sort of—crammed in there. With all the—you know—stuff.“

Sherlock glanced back over at John, who appeared to have closed his eyes in an effort to avoid meeting his gaze. His lips threatened a smile.

"She was going to throw it away, but—well—she got a better look at it and thought it was a little strange, yeah? And then she cleaned it up, and thought it was _really_ strange. So she called us,” Lestrade said. “And—what are the odds? I mean. The missing Black Pearl of the Borgias!” He made a gleeful sound, slapped his knee with his open palm. “Hopkins is on vacation. She’s going to be bloody furious that she missed this!”

"Am I understanding you correctly?“ Sherlock said, turning his full focus to Lestrade. "Molly Hooper inexplicably found a priceless missing gem in her dinner, and you came rushing over here to tell me because I’d be—”

"Pleased?“ John cut in. "Amused? Delighted? Fascinated? Feel free to choose any of the above, Sherlock.”

"No,“ Lestrade said, frowning a little bit. "I came over here to see if you could find out how in the hell it got into that chicken in the first place.”

"Oh,“ Sherlock said. He perked up as several ideas took hold at once. _”Oh.“_


	6. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My early rough drafts for (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea had multiple point-of-view characters. I ultimately settled on telling the entire story from Sherlock's perspective.
> 
> This scene was eventually adapted into the conversation Sherlock and Mycroft have in the car in [Chapter Two:](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9848774/chapters/22241165)
>
>> "You are right to be angry with me," Mycroft said. "I have inadvertently caused you a good deal of suffering. It was not my intention." He cleared his throat. "I never wanted a sibling, you know."
>> 
>> Sherlock heaved a sigh, leaned back against the leather seat. "Clearly."
>> 
>> "No, you misunderstand me," Mycroft said. "I was seven years old when you arrived on the scene. I'd had seven years to myself. I was not particularly keen for that to change."
>> 
>> "Not keen to share your pudding, you mean."
>> 
>> "Certainly not," Mycroft said, and there was a hint of surprising humour in his tone. "Your very existence seemed superfluous. I had already been assured that I was remarkable. Why, then, would they want another?"
>> 
>> Sherlock made a derisive noise, glanced towards the door to Baker Street. The knocker had been shifted, ever-so-slightly. It could have been Mrs Hudson, or a client, of course, but—
>> 
>> "Mummy seemed to feel that I was lonely," Mycroft said. He made a noise, a strangled sound halfway between a dismissive snort and a chuckle containing genuine warmth. "And when I assured her that I was not, and that she did not need to make up for any perceived inadequacy by providing me with a brother, she made me promise to look out for you."
>> 
>> Sherlock looked away from the door, took in his brother's subdued demeanor, his tense shoulders, his face, pinched and drawn. This was not an easy subject.
>> 
>> "She asked me to promise, and I did. Promise. I promised that I would always look out for you, that I would protect you, that I would shield you from harm. And, to be entirely honest, I did not find it nearly as distasteful as I thought I would. I—well. I rather embraced my task, if you must know."
>> 
>> "Charming," Sherlock said, looking away again. He was growing increasingly certain that the particular positioning of the knocker meant that John had stopped by at some point. Was he still there? Or had they simply missed one another, ships passing within arm's length on a foggy night?
>> 
>> "I took to the role of big brother so well, in fact, that it rather slipped Mummy's mind to extract the same promise from me when Eurus was born."

*

Mycroft had never wanted a sibling.

He had spent the first seven years of his life rather heavily indulged, the sole focus of his parents’ love and attention. He’d not been keen on change.

When his parents had sat him down to break the news about Sherlock, he had complained.

A brother, a _baby_ brother, would result in a heavy and inevitable shift of their priorities and attention.

"But why do you need to have another?“ he’d asked once, frowning at his mother’s rounded belly. "I thought I was remarkable.”

He’d been told so, after all. More than once. By professionals in that sort of thing.

"You are,“ Mummy had reassured him. "You know you are. But aren’t you lonely?”

He’d been asked that before, of course. And he’d never understood why. They lived in a big rambling manor house, with long hallways that echoed his footsteps in pleasing ways. There were rooms filled with books. There was a kitchen perpetually stocked with his favourites, and parents who would obligingly abandon their own pursuits whenever he requested entertainment.

"I’m not lonely,“ he’d said, as he always did. And Mummy had stroked the top of his head with her cool, soothing hand, the other one splayed out across her belly. He’d resented that, a bit. Her attention, already split. Him, forever having to settle for half.

"Mycroft,” she’d scolded, and she certainly could be stern when the situation called for it (at the time, he had not felt that the situation called for it at all, and had been rather affronted by the whole thing), “I want you to make me a promise.”

He’d scowled up at her, already certain that he wasn’t going to like her next words.

"I want you to promise me that you’ll look out for your brother. That you’ll be there for him, whenever he needs you. And he will. Need you.“ She’d smiled, stroked his head again. "He’ll look up to you.”

He’d tried very hard to think his way out of it, but Mummy was exceedingly clever. Ultimately, he’d had no choice but to acquiesce.

And it hadn’t been all that terrible, really. Once he’d gotten a glimpse of Sherlock, all red-faced and furious and contrary, small and vulnerable and indeed very much indeed of protection—it hadn’t been so terrible at all.

And for a time, Sherlock had seemed so terribly ordinary, and that had only made him more vulnerable in Mycroft’s eyes. He’d found himself happy to step up to the task, to keep his vow. He took his oath seriously. He would not break his word.

Eurus had arrived barely a year later, similarly small and red-faced and furious. Vulnerable too, no doubt.

He had not been coddled or coaxed or cajoled into accepting her the way he had been when Sherlock had first arrived. Part of that, he was certain, was due to his parents’ attention being as divided as he’d feared. The other part, he decided later, was down to his parents seeing how he was with Sherlock, how well he’d taken to the role of Sherlock’s fearless older brother, and reaching the conclusion that he no longer needed to be warmed up to the idea of siblings.

But Mycroft had always been very precise about language. He was, after all, remarkable. And while he’d held his Mummy’s gaze and had solemnly given her his word that he’d look after Sherlock, he had never once said the same about Eurus.


	7. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small fill-in-the-blanks scene showing Mycroft at Sherrinford, which was cut when I decided to tell the entire story from Sherlock's perspective. 
> 
> Referenced briefly in this exchange between Sherlock and Mycroft:
>
>> "Eurus. You thought I killed her. That's why you sent Lestrade for me that night."
>> 
>> Mycroft was silent. He stared out the window for some time as London fell away behind them.
>> 
>> "It's what I would have done," he said, finally. 

*

He sat back down at the edge of the little bed. Pressed his fingers against his temples, shut his eyes.

It was almost three hours before he heard movement, the hiss of the pneumatic doors. He lifted his head, looked up at the guard hesitantly approaching the glass.

"Now what?“ he asked.

The guard pressed his keycard against the reader. The cell door swung open. "We’ve been instructed to let you go.”

He stood up, tugged his tie into place. Scowled. “And is that some sort of unpleasant euphemism? Am I to be taken to the roof and dropped?”

"No sir,“ the guard said. He held out a phone.

He studied the man for a moment, saw no deception. He took the phone, turned away. Pressed it to his ear.

"Yes?”

"Sherrinford is _secure?_ “ Lady Smallwood scoffed. "I’ve seen private residences with better security than your supposed impenetrable fortress.”

He shut his eyes again. His head had begun to throb. “Has my sister been located?”

"No. Do you have any idea where she might be headed?“

He hesitated. Thought of Sherlock, pinned by laser sights at Appledore. The look on his brother’s face as he’d pulled the trigger on Magnussen.

Magnussen had embarrassed him. Inconvenienced him. Threatened him. Had _harmed John Watson_ and had indicated his intent to do it again. And for that, Sherlock had shot him. Had shot him in full view of witnesses, damn the consequences.

Eurus had done far worse.

"No,” he said into the phone. “I’ll call you immediately if something occurs.”

"No need to call,“ she said. "I’m on my way.”

And he could hear it now, even deep in the bowels of the building—the slow building whump of helicopter blades.

He ended the call. Cleared his throat.

"Sir—" the guard began.

"If you are about to offer something resembling an apology,“ he said. "Please refrain.”

The guard shut his mouth.

"Go,“ Mycroft said.

He went.

He looked down at the phone in his hand. Pursed his lips. Dialed.

Officially, Gregory Lestrade did not know anything of what had happened at Appledore. Officially, he’d been fed the same story as the public—Charles Magnussen had been felled by a stray bullet from an overeager member of the task force.

Unofficially, he was one of very few people who knew the whole truth. He had, over the years, demonstrated an admirable measure of loyalty towards Sherlock. His primary interests often aligned with Mycroft’s own—an intent to keep Sherlock safe from harm at all costs.

"Detective Inspector,” he said, when the call connected. “Do not speak. I need you to do something.”


	8. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Mycroft-at-Sherrinford moment that was cut when I reworked the story from Sherlock's perspective. 
> 
> Referenced here:
>
>> A security team had found Alex Garrideb on the beach on their second sweep of the island. He'd been huddled, shivering, against jagged rocks, his hands still bound.
>> 
>> He was treated for his injuries, then formally arrested and taken into custody for the murder of James Evans.
>> 
>> He had not, Sherlock was told, struggled or put up any kind of protest, nor made any token effort to clear his name. The only words he had spoken, as he was being escorted from Sherrinford, were to inquire about his brothers. 

*

A security team found Alex Garrideb on the beach, huddled against the jagged rocks.

They took him inside, and he went without complaint, shivering and dripping water from his sodden clothes all down the corridor. His hands were still bound, the wet rope chafing against blue-tinged skin.

He was brought to a small office, given dry clothes. He ignored them, sat down on the little metal chair and put his head in his hands.

Mycroft went into the room, sat down across from him. Did not speak.

After some time, Alex Garrideb lifted his head.

"I saw you,“ he said.

Mycroft nodded. Folded his hands.

"My brothers are dead. Aren’t they?”

Mycroft raised his shoulders in a small shrug. “We haven’t found any sign of them.”

"I saw Nathan. In the water. He was—right there, for a moment. And then he was gone.“

Mycroft nodded again.

"The tide took me,” Alex said. “The tide took me and dragged me in. Why me? Why me and not them?”

Mycroft could have provided him with extensive information on tidal patterns and rip currents in the area surrounding Sherrinford’s grim little island, but he supposed that Alex Garrideb would find such information neither helpful nor interesting.

So instead, he offered a small sad smile and said. “Who knows?”


	9. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene was meant to take place the morning after the Sherrinford mess. A car transported Sherlock and John back to London, John went home to Rosie, and Sherlock then continued on to Mycroft’s. (We assume that Mycroft has already been returned to London via helicopter.)
> 
> I cut this for pacing reasons– a good deal of the story was already spent in flashbacks, and this didn’t really add any new information to what we already knew about Sherlock's state of mind. I liked their interaction a lot, though.
> 
> (Just as an FYI, this contains a brief reference to Eurus’s comments regarding her attack on a prison guard.)
> 
> Timing wise, this scene fits in shortly after this exchange:
>
>> They were nearing London when John's breathing changed, when he stirred towards wakefulness. Sherlock detached himself, slid carefully back over onto his side of the car, left a small but respectful distance between them.
>> 
>> "Oh," John said, sitting upright with a sudden jolt. Awake with the speed of the soldier. "Sherlock, you—you can't go back to Baker Street. There's nowhere for you to—"
>> 
>> Baker Street was in shambles, roped-off, inaccessible. His mind felt much the same.
>> 
>> "Come back with me," John said. "You can—"
>> 
>> "No," he said.
>> 
>> John fell silent. Frowned. He fidgeted with the edge of his scrub top.
>> 
>> "There are some details I'll need to go over with Mycroft," Sherlock said, straightening his shoulders. "He'll be expecting me."
>> 
>> John made an incredulous sound that was not unlike laughter. "Expecting you? A few hours ago we didn't even know if he was alive."
>> 
>> Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes, but that was hours ago."

*

He didn’t have to knock. Mycroft opened the door as if he had, indeed, been expecting him.

Mycroft had composed himself. There was no trace of the perplexed panic that had gripped him at Sherrinford, none of that uncomfortable wildness in his eyes. He’d changed his clothes. A fresh suit, well-pressed, no creases.

They stood regarding each other.

Mycroft opened his mouth. Whatever he’d intended to say died on his lips as he took in Sherlock’s countenance, and he shut his mouth again, stepped aside.

Sherlock brushed past, into the foyer. Let the door slam behind him. “Call and order something. I’m starving.”

"The sun is barely up,“ Mycroft said. "I’ve only just arrived home, myself.”

Sherlock whirled back around, distracted by the sound of an idling engine outside, the crunch of approaching footsteps. He narrowed his eyes, yanked the door open again.

A delivery man, hand poised to knock, took a startled step back. The plastic bag in his hand rustled.

"I may have anticipated your visit,“ Mycroft said.

Sherlock snatched the bag out of the man’s hand, left his brother to pay. He went down the hallway to the dining room, upended the bag on the long wooden table. Breakfast pastries. Still warm. He bit into a croissant, brushed at the crumbs that gathered on his shirt.

"Plates,” Mycroft said, sighing as he entered the room. “Utensils.”

"Takes too much time,“ Sherlock gave a dismissive wave of his hand, popped the rest of the croissant into his mouth. He rummaged through the remaining pastries for something else.

Mycroft carefully availed himself of an apple tart. "I presume you’ll be needing the guest room.”

"If it’s not too much trouble,“ Sherlock said. He picked up a second pastry, examined it, set it aside. Chose another, took a bite. Spoke around his mouthful. "After all, it’s your fault I’m currently homeless.”

"Not homeless,“ Mycroft said quietly. "Just… displaced. Temporarily.”

"Still your fault.“

"Yes, I suppose it is.”

Sherlock stopped chewing, stared at him for a moment. There was a discomfiting lack of smugness on his brother’s face.

He set his pastry down on the table, not bothering with a napkin. Fruit filling dribbled out onto the wood.

Mycroft raised his brows, took another restrained bite of his own tart.

The silence stretched between them.

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Well. You had hours at Sherrinford after we left. What did you accomplish?”

Mycroft leaned back in his chair, folded his hands.

"The entire staff has been relieved of duty, of course. Temporary replacements have been installed. This will—well. As I’m sure you can imagine, this entire matter will take some time to sort.“ He sniffed, looked down at his hands. "But preliminary efforts have been made to put the pieces together. So to speak.”

Sherlock raised his brows.

"She had, it appears, surreptitiously replaced four of the guards with inmates. Doctored the records. One of our men had been imprisoned under a false identity for going on two years.“

"And the inmates?”

"Continued showing up for work.“ Mycroft shrugged, bemused.

Sherlock’s lip twitched. "Hm.”

"Also—" Mycroft hesitated. “There is no record of a violent assault on any guard. Sexual or otherwise. Based on review of the video record of your conversation with Eurus I thought it might—ease your mind. To know that.”

"She doctored records, Mycroft, you said so yourself.“

"The staff we’ve interviewed have been adamant. Her behavior has been described as manipulative, alarming, sociopathic, abnormal, terrifying and, in one case, borderline supernatural—but never _out of control._ All of her actions were specifically tailored to generate a reaction.”

"You don’t say.“

"She spoke to you in such a way because she wanted to shock you, little brother. She wanted to get under your skin. And she succeeded.”

He breathed in, looked down at his hands. He was suddenly quite tired.

"Well.“ Mycroft said, after a moment. He looked down at his half-eaten apple tart, back up at Sherlock. "I’ve had the guest room prepared. I imagine you’ll be wanting some rest.”


	10. (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea - Outtake 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternate take on the Mummy-has-a-Facebook-page discovery from the [final chapter of (Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9848774/chapters/23513373) As with a lot of things I wound up cutting and re-tooling from the first draft, this scene was just too lighthearted and comedic for this particular story.
> 
> This was reworked into these two moments:
>
>> They rode in silence for some time. As the helicopter began its slow descent towards London, Mycroft slipped his phone out of his pocket, looked at the screen, made a pained noise.
>> 
>> "What is it this time? Another war?"
>> 
>> "No," he said. "It appears that Mummy has discovered Facebook."  
> 
> 
>   
> and
>
>>   
> "What's this, then?" John asked, later, as they sat on the sofa beneath the drying handprints, empty takeout containers spread across the coffee table. He held out his phone.
>> 
>> Sherlock sighed, leaned forward to look.
>> 
>> Facebook, of course. His mother had uploaded a truly appalling amount of photographs of himself and Mycroft at varying ages, and John had ignored the telly entirely in favor of scrolling through them and chuckling.  
> 

*

One evening, while standing over a corpse that had been discovered in a skip (technically, while standing over Sherlock who was crouched examining said corpse), John had glanced down at his phone and positively howled with laughter.

That had earned him sharp and disapproving looks from both Donovan and Lestrade, expressions that vanished entirely when they, too, looked down at their phones and similarly began to laugh.

It had been enough to send Sherlock careening to his feet, craning his neck to see over John’s shoulder.

Mummy, it seemed, had discovered Facebook. And, in her zeal, had sent out a series of friend requests to, seemingly, everyone whose path he’d crossed at some point in his life.

This might not have been so terrible, had she not also set her profile photo to a picture of Sherlock, circa age twelve, frowning thunderously at the camera. A large swath of his hair was missing, just over his right eye.

"Chewing gum mishap,“ he protested uselessly. "It’s not _that_ funny.”

(“ANDERSON?!” he shouted, later, delving further into her profile. “She sent a friend request to _Anderson?_ ” And John had laughed and laughed and laughed.)

(John had not laughed with nearly as much gusto when Sherlock expressed a similar shocked outrage at the saucy comments Janine had left on the photo. He had not, in fact, laughed at all.)


	11. Cleanup in Aisle Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/164006726906/cleanup-in-aisle-four)

*

John is standing in front of a shelf of boxed cereals in Tesco when it happens.

Rosie bounces in her pushchair, coos over the array of choices in front of her. She is drawn to the brightly coloured boxes, sugared and unhealthy, more treat than breakfast. He ignores her fussing, chooses something with plainer packaging, whole grains, no sugar. 

He suspects that Sherlock indulges her sweet tooth, though he has no firm proof of this.

There is a woman watching them from the end of the aisle, a withered old crone, stooped and unkempt. There are age spots on her trembling hands. She smiles.

It is not unusual. Rosie is a particularly comely child, all wild blond curls and bright, inquisitive eyes. She draws attention wherever they go.

He flashes a polite smile in return, turns away. 

Turns back. 

The woman is still smiling, still watching. Their eyes meet and he _knows._

"Oh," he says. "Oh _Christ—_ " and he staggers a bit, presses his knuckles hard against his mouth. The world goes a bit fuzzy at the edges. 

Rosie ratchets from curiosity to alarm in six seconds flat. She sniffles, and then begins to wail. 

The old woman takes a halting step forward, stops. Shakes her head. Backs up. Turns away. 

That jars him loose. He sets his basket down on the ground, grips the pushchair with both hands. Steps forward with a determined stride.

"Don't you dare," he says, and his voice is terse, low, hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't you dare _go_ anywhere." 

If she truly wants to run, he'll not be able to stop her. She'll be able to shuck her disguise and melt into the evening crowds before he could possibly catch up with Rosie in tow. 

She does not run. Instead she slows her stride, defeated, and stands facing the door. He looks at her back, at the tense line of her shoulders under a lumpy cardigan, at the wisps of grey hair working loose from a messy bun. 

Rosie has gone red in the face, screaming in her chair. She flails her chubby fists, kicks her legs. 

Mary turns around.

Her expression is pained. Her eyes are strange behind dark-tinted contact lenses, her makeup thorough, convincing. She looks at Rosie, then back to him. There is moisture gleaming on her cheeks. 

His own eyes sting. His hand trembles.

She stands very still for a moment, watching him. Then turns and walks out of the store.

He is tempted to shout, to give chase, but he can see her through the glass, making her way slowly through the crowd. She is not fleeing. She is giving him ample time to follow. 

He breathes out hard through his nose, shuts his eyes. Clenches and unclenches his hand. Flexes his fingers. Murmurs a few soothing words to Rosie, who has started to settle down. 

In his pocket, his phone chimes with an incoming text.

_Don't forget the biscuits. SH_

He huffs out a disbelieving laugh, shuts his eyes. One of the fluorescent lights overhead has begun to buzz. Rosie makes a tentative whimpering sound, falls silent. 

His phone buzzes again. 

_Please? SH_

He thinks of Mary, gasping out her last breaths in his arm under the rippling blue aquarium lights. He thinks of the way she'd smiled at him on their wedding day, their first dance to the plaintive sounds of Sherlock's violin. He thinks of the way her face could shift from warm to cold in an instant, the way he'd loved her, the way he'd loathed her, the way he'd tried his very best to push it all aside and start over. The way it had almost, _almost_ worked. 

He goes back up the aisle, gathers up his basket from the floor. Goes into the next aisle, overly aware of the sound of his own breathing, of the squeaky wheel on Rosie's pushchair, the intermittent buzz of the overhead lights. 

He picks up a box of the biscuits Sherlock favours. Hesitates, then adds a second box to the basket. 

He wonders if Sherlock knew. And then he thinks of Sherlock's face, that night, the shocked frozen devastation in his expression. Thinks of all that came after. 

No, he decides. Sherlock had not known.

He adds a third box of biscuits. Goes down the aisle towards the cashier. Smiles as she coos over Rosie. He bags up his shopping, pushes Rosie out through the door. It is getting dark. 

He looks to his left, in the direction that Mary had gone. Stands for a long moment just watching the people as they hurry along the pavement. 

Then he turns right, sets out into the crowd at a comfortable pace, back towards Baker Street, back towards home.


	12. Incentive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by [ruth0007](http://ruth0007.tumblr.com/): _Where does she keep her Aston Martin? How often does she drive it, etc._
> 
> Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/164106362671/incentive)

*

It is late, very late, when she hears the soft knock at her door. 

There's only one person it can be, really, and so she pushes up off of the sofa and goes right for the door without worrying that she's in her nightie. 

John is standing in the hallway, one hand scratching behind his neck the way he does, sometimes, when he's nervous or uncomfortable. He holds out her keys. 

She does not take them from him, but steps aside, holding the door open, a wordless invitation. 

He shakes his head, looks down. Clears his throat. "I should be—"

"Nonsense," she says. "It's past midnight. Anything you need to do can almost certainly wait until tomorrow." She pauses for a moment, just to be sure he's not about to voice another objection. When he says nothing, she allows herself a small sigh of relief. "I'll make you some tea." 

"Tea," John says, and his hand is still worrying at the back of his neck. He looks diminished, somehow, in the dim hall light. His face is pale, his eyes shadowed. The skin on the back of his knuckles is red and scraped raw, and it hurts her heart, that sight, even though Sherlock had told her weeks ago what might happen. 

He follows her into her flat, shuts the door behind him. The telly is still on, blaring, and she shuffles across the room to silence it. 

When she turns back, he's holding out her keys again. This time she accepts them, hangs them carefully from the little hook she keeps by the door. 

"It is," he says. "A very nice car." 

"Mm, I've always rather thought so," she smiles to herself, goes into the kitchen to start the kettle. 

His wondering expression amuses her. She's kept a permit and maintained a little resident parking bay at the end of Baker Street for years. The car itself has changed over the years (she _does_ like to remain current), but there has been an Aston Martin parked in that same space for as long as she's lived in London. 

Poor, dear Sherlock did always chide John for being unobservant, sometimes unfairly (in her opinion), but _really._ He's passed it by more times than she can count.

He has followed her into the kitchen, and she sees him thinking, sees him mulling it over, and when he opens his mouth to ask, she cuts him off. 

"I don't need the rent money, John. I never have. Surely you've worked that out." 

He shrugs, looks up at the ceiling. She knows he is thinking about Sherlock, about those two terrible years when they thought they'd lost him, about the way she'd kept the flat exactly as he'd left it that night. 

She reaches out, pats him on the hand. The kettle clicks off and she turns, busies herself preparing the tea.

"Why have tenants at all, then?" he asks, finally. "I mean—" he huffs out a laugh, shakes his head. "Mrs Hudson. That's a—that's an _Aston Martin._ " 

"I've led a very interesting life," she says. "I suppose I'm rather used to a certain level of chaos. And it would be dreadfully lonely, just me in this big building, don't you think?" 

And there's Sherlock, of course, but she'll need to tread carefully on that subject for a while. 

"But—" John says, and he seems hung up on it, he's shaking his head again like he can't quite believe his ears. 

She takes a sip of her tea, leans in, drops her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "Understand, John, there was a period of time where I thought I'd spend the rest of my life in Florida." 

"Right," John says. "Yes. But—" 

"And when I found myself a free woman, with more than enough money to ease my way, I came home." 

"Right," he says again.

"London is my home." She pauses, because how can she explain, how can she make John understand the strange pull the city has over her? The way she loves it? Sherlock understands. She thinks he feels much the same about their lovely city, that he feels the quiver of London's heartbeat in his veins the same way that she does in hers. 

John is looking at her with an odd, fond smile, and she wonders if she has spoken aloud. She loses track, sometimes, late at night. Especially on damp nights with her hip acting up the way it does. 

"I wanted to feel as close to the city as possible," she says. "Flat on Baker Street. James Bond's car. Do you understand?" 

He smiles faintly, shrugs. "I—understand that I want to do whatever it takes to get in your good graces so that you'll let me borrow your car again." 

She laughs, pats him on the arm again, takes another sip of tea. 

"Is he all right, then?" she asks, hesitant now.

John blows out a breath through his nose, looks away. "No," he says. "Well. Yes. In that he's not currently being murdered. But." 

"He knew you'd work it out," she says. 

"But I didn't work it out," he says. He looks suddenly miserable, like he could fold in on himself. "I didn't—he nearly died. I nearly killed him." 

_Are you sure of this?_ she'd asked Sherlock, weeks ago, when he'd first told her his plans. They'd stood quietly together in the upstairs flat, Mary's face frozen on a laptop screen. 

_What choice do I have?_ he'd said, and there had been such sadness in him. And she'd hated it, had hated to see him wreck himself on drugs and lose himself in his head, but she'd gone along with it. Because she loved him, and because he'd asked her. 

"Enough of this now," she says. She sets her tea down on the counter. "You need to buck up, John. I know she's gone, but this path you've been on—it's not doing anyone any good. Not your sweet little Rosie, not Sherlock, and not you." 

He lifts his head, and there are tears gleaming unshed in his eyes. 

"Pull yourself together," she says. "And I'll let you borrow my car whenever you want."


	13. Suspension of Disbelief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by [Khorazir](https://khorazir.tumblr.com/): _The boys watch some episodes of The X-Files together._
> 
> Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/164114806306/suspension-of-disbelief)

*

Sherlock looked up from the microscope, blinked. John looked back at him, his face expectant. 

Clearly, he'd been speaking. Clearly, a response of some kind was required. 

"Of course," he tried. 

John raised his brows, looked both pleased and surprised. This—this did not bode well. Perhaps he should have asked John to repeat himself, but he did so loathe repetition. 

"Go on, then," John said. He stepped over towards the fridge, perused the menus with a little frown of concentration. 

Sherlock hesitated. _Go on?_

Judging by John's preoccupation with the menus, he thought perhaps he may have agreed to dinner plans. Except, if that was all, then what was he meant to _go on_ with? 

He stood up from the table, took a cautious step towards the sitting room. John had left the telly on. It was cycling through a DVD menu of some kind, eerie whistling music backed by piano. He frowned, looked back. 

John glanced up from the menus, made a shooing motion with his hand. Ah. It appeared that he'd committed to watching a film or—he paused, looked at the screen—a television series. 

He sighed, aimed a longing glance in the direction of his abandoned microscope, and settled himself on the sofa. He took up a bit more space than entirely necessary. 

The menu looped, started again. Piano. Whistling. 

John paced around the kitchen, phone to his ear, ordering the takeaway. Sherlock glanced at the menus, now rearranged on the front of the fridge. Chinese. 

He looked back at the television. Opened his mouth to speak. 

"I'm betting you missed this entirely, yeah?" John said, sitting down on the sofa next to him. The cushions dipped, and Sherlock found himself wanting to lean closer, to blame the motion on his shifted balance—but no, best not. 

"Missed--?" 

" _The X-Files._ " John said with a nod at the screen. "FBI agents, government conspiracies, aliens…? Kind of a big deal in the 90s. Ringing any bells at all?" 

Sherlock scoffed, looked away. "I had other things on my mind in the 90s." 

John cleared his throat, looked down. 

The menu continued to loop.

"Right," John said, after a long moment. He reached for the remote. "Food will be here in about twenty minutes."

He pressed play. 

*

"Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" asked the man on the screen. He was being altogether too dramatic about the whole thing, in Sherlock's opinion. 

"Logically, I would have to say no," his recently-assigned partner countered. 

"Actually—" Sherlock said. 

John picked up the remote, pressed pause. Stared at him. 

"Never mind," Sherlock said. 

*

"Time can't just disappear," said the woman on the screen. "It's a universal invariant." 

"No it isn't," Sherlock said. 

"Shush," John said. 

"But she read physics at university, she would know that—"

"Sherlock," John said. 

*

For some reason, the woman had decided to bathe by candlelight. She had only just begun to disrobe when something frightened her and sent her rushing through the rain into the arms of her male coworker. 

Sherlock sighed, rolled his eyes. Looked back towards the kitchen, where his microscope beckoned. 

"Just watch," John said, through a mouthful of lo mein. 

The scene did not play out the way he'd expected. 

*

"Another," he said when it was over. 

"What, really?" John's voice was incredulous. 

He wrestled the remote out of John's hand.

*

"It's really not that easy to break into a secret government base." 

"Er," John said. "Yes, actually, it is. We've done it." 

"We had the proper credentials." 

"Faked credentials." 

"Still. It wasn't as simple as ducking under a chain link fence for God's sake." 

John chuckled, leaned back against the sofa cushions. At some point he had migrated closer, his arm warm where it brushed against Sherlock's. 

"Now he's gone and gotten himself drugged," Sherlock protested, looking away. "That didn't happen to me." 

"No, it happened to me," John said, and swatted at him. "Arsehole." 

"Another," he said, when it was over. 

*

"I'm expected to believe that this man sleeps in a nest of newspapers and bile and emerges precisely every thirty years to consume five human livers?" 

"It's not really so much believing as it is suspension of disbelief, yeah?" 

"No," Sherlock said. "The dichotomy between the two main characters—" 

"Wasn't talking about them," John said. His voice had grown sleepy. "Was talking about us." 

"What, precisely, are we meant to be suspending disbelief over?" 

"The livers," John said, gesturing vaguely towards the screen. "The bile." 

"The lack of a romantic entanglement in spite of the clear attraction and the fact that both main characters clearly have no one else in their lives of similar importance?" 

"That too," John said. A faint smile flickered on his face.

*

"Another." 

"Sherlock, I need to go to sleep."

"Mm," Sherlock said, distracted. He slid over on the couch to give John more room. The loss John's warm comfortable weight against his side was jarring.

He reached over, snatched up the throw pillow from the coffee table. Held it up for a moment, weighing his options. He thought about the warmth of John's arm, pressed against his own, the way his chest rose and fell with each measured breath. 

He set the pillow in his lap. Waited. 

John hesitated for a long moment, studying him, his face difficult to read in the blueish light from the television screen. Then he carefully, slowly arranged himself so that his head was on the pillow, resting on Sherlock's lap. He held himself quite stiffly, his shoulders tense, his movements unsure. 

"Suspension of disbelief," Sherlock said. He spoke in a low, quiet voice, dipping his head down. John's face was very close, in the dark. 

"What, exactly, are you trying to say?" John asked. His voice was little more than a whisper. He shifted, the leather squeaking under his frame. 

"Lack of romantic entanglement in spite of clear attraction. And—" he stopped, swallowed. Could no longer bear to look at John's profile in the dark. Turned his head towards the window. "No one else in my life of similar importance." 

"Clear attraction?" John asked, his voice sleepy, fond. 

"Well," Sherlock said, his throat suddenly dry. "Yes?" 

John chuckled, shifted again, rolling over onto his side. He reached up a hand, cupped Sherlock's cheek. 

He could not say with any certainty who moved in first. But his lips were pressed against John's, warm and soft and utterly thrilling, sending electric shocks of sensation down his spine. His eyes slipped shut and he sighed, breath puffing against John's face. 

"All right?" John asked, quiet, pulling back. He no longer looked drowsy. 

Sherlock stared at him, at his eyes, gleaming bright in the television glow. At his face, expressive and endearing and so very dear to him. _How?_ he wondered, and not for the first time. _How had this happened?_

"Sherlock?" John asked again, his voice low, careful. He left his hand cradled against Sherlock's face. 

Sherlock smiled. "Another," he said, and leaned in.


	14. Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end scene to a fic I had begun writing in the hiatus between S3 and TAB. As is sometimes the case with new canon material, seeing TAB shifted my perspective on the story, and I lost my momentum to ever finish this. 
> 
> The original planned story was tentatively titled "Doubt," and was sort of twisty, jumping back and forth in time, with a heavy focus on what I saw, at the time, as Mary’s ambiguous nature and the vague possibility of a Moriarty connection. During a confrontation with the not-dead Moriarty, John would have to come to terms with his lack of trust in his wife and his doubts about her motives, while Sherlock retreats into his mind palace to try to put the pieces together. 
> 
> So while I don't have any plans to finish the fic, I did very much like this part, which is a reversal of the tarmac scene at the end of S3.
> 
> Plot-wise, at this point in the story Mary is meant to have killed Moriarty. Her actions bring her to the attention of the authorities, and her identity is compromised. Mycroft pulls some strings, and Mary and John are offered placement in a witness protection program. Sherlock has come to see them off.

*

He steps out of the car. The sky is lightening, slate gray. 

The plane waits on the runway. He looks at it, and is struck with a wave of déjà vu, overwhelming, nauseating. Behind him, the driver has turned off the car. The engine clicks in the cold air. 

John and Mary are standing together. They are looking at the plane, and neither turns at Sherlock's approach. There is a man in a black suit with them, a CIA agent, no doubt. Sherlock is irrationally glad it is not the man he remembers from the Adler case.

He draws closer, holding himself in check, carefully blank. His eyes sweep over the pair of them. They look tired. Unhappy.

John meets his gaze, swallows. "MI6 was waiting at my house when I got home last night," he says. He makes a terrible attempt to smile. "Kind of thing that seems like it would be a lot more exciting than it actually was." 

"Given your near-constant need to embellish and exaggerate on your blog, I'd have thought you were already well aware of the disconnect between fiction and reality," Sherlock murmurs. 

"Joking, then," John says, his face still approximating a smile. He nods. "Good. That's—that's good." 

A retort dies on Sherlock's lips. He cannot seem to maintain the fiction that all is well, cannot go on bantering with John as if this is not the end. He's already done this. Doing it again is tantamount to torture. He looks past John, stares hard at the plane that is to take him away. 

"Sherlock," John says. His shoulders are hunched against the wind. "Mary and I talked last night. After."

He does not want to hear this. There is no _reason_ to hear this. Obviously, they've talked. They wouldn't be standing here, in the cold, if they hadn't talked. Mycroft has already told him about the deal that's been cut, about the new identities and the new lives and the official pardons. It is all logical and sound and fine but he does not want to hear it again, and he certainly does not want to hear it from John Watson's mouth. 

So he tunes out the words that John is saying, instead takes the time to look his fill, to memorize all of the curves and planes of his friend's face. There are laugh lines around his eyes, deeper now than when they first met, and although he is not laughing now it is easy to remember the times they have laughed together, laughed well and loud. He's never laughed quite the same way with anyone else as he laughs with John Watson. Their association has left its mark on John's skin. This pleases him. 

John has stopped speaking and is now standing in front of him, looking at him with something approaching concern. His hands are gripping Sherlock's forearms. 

John's lips are moving again, shaping his name. 

Sherlock tunes back in. 

"Sherlock," John says. 

"Yes, John, obviously," he says, gives a little dismissive wave. 

John lets him go, steps back slightly. His expression is odd. Was he expecting a big emotional scene? If he is, he'll be leaving disappointed. Sherlock does not have it in him to do this again. There is only so much he can reasonably be expected to take. 

Mary walks forward, and Sherlock sighs, because here they go all over again, time to bid farewell and good luck and—he doesn't think he'll be able to make another small joke, to listen to Mary tell him, in her way, that she'll look after John. It was easier, when he was going to his death. Comforting, even, to think that he was leaving his friend in the hands of someone who understood him.

It's different, now, to think that he'll have to go on living, knowing that John is also living but forever out of reach. His capacity for selflessness only goes so far, it seems. 

"Considering we've just done this a day ago, I don't think this moment needs to be prolonged, do you?" Sherlock asks her. 

She smiles wryly, reaches out to squeeze his arm. "You read my mind." 

"Right," he nods, looks from her to John. "Well. Off you go then." 

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," Mary says. Her voice is grave. 

He is not quite sure what she is apologizing for. He finds he is strangely reluctant to ask. 

She turns towards John, takes both of his hands in hers. 

"I would have died for you," she tells him. 

An odd thing to say. 

John nods once, sharply, his lips pressed tight together. Then he softens, ever so slightly. "I know," he says, and his voice is rough. "But all things considered, I'd rather you didn't." 

She nods, lets out a teary little laugh that sounds half-strangled. And then they are hugging, there in the cold, she has both arms around him and he has his head buried in her shoulder, where the wool of her coat meets her knit scarf. 

Sherlock looks away, the moment feeling oddly private. This is—he does not understand. Within minutes, the two of them will be on the plane together, free to say or do what they wish. Why are they—why now? Is this somehow for his benefit, something he's missed? 

Perhaps he _will_ be able to rest easier, knowing that they are all right. 

That must be it. It _must_ be. Because John has always been aware of Sherlock's deficiencies in understanding sentiment (so many things are done for a _reason,_ cause and effect, and he is always able to see it, to pick apart those threads, but when emotion is added in to the mix it all gets muddled up, people behave in the most _inexplicable_ ways), he has always taken care to help Sherlock navigate uncomfortable social situations, he must be choosing to show Sherlock, in no uncertain terms, that there is no longer any need for concern. The right choices have been made, vows have been upheld, there will be no returning (alone) to Baker Street to wonder about the troubling disconnect between words and thoughts and actions. 

All is well. This is a _good_ thing. He is here, yet again, standing in bitter wind on a lonely stretch of tarmac and he is _saying goodbye_ , he is saying goodbye _forever,_ but it is not the kind of goodbye that comes with an axe dangling overhead, with the grim reaper waiting knowingly in the wings. It is a goodbye that speaks of happy endings, of swelling music and rolling credits that sometimes include a text epilogue over a freeze-frame picture of the happy couple, something inane like: _"John and Mary moved to America, where they raised two lovely daughters and had many wonderful adventures. Although they never forgot about him, neither one ever saw Sherlock Holmes again."_

He abruptly feels sick. He shouldn't feel sick. This is a good thing. This is the best possible outcome. Everyone gets to live. Even him. And he'll still have his work. 

John and Mary are moving towards the plane now, and Sherlock gapes after them for a moment, stunned. John has not said goodbye. John has—there was not even an attempt, not a hug, not a handshake, not a half-hearted joke. He's just turned and—

But this is better, isn't it? This is what he'd wanted in the first place. No protracted goodbyes (again). No forced smiles (again). He's gotten his one last look at John and hasn't had to pretend that all of this is fine.

He is seized by a sudden panic and wants to call out, wants to halt their slow progression. His voice gums up in his throat and he makes a garbled noise that is swallowed by the wind. That's all right. He has no idea what he wants to say anyway. 

They are up the steps now, John supporting Mary with a gentle arm around her waist. He watches as they disappear together into the plane without looking back. Not even a glance over the shoulder. And that's—it shouldn't bother him. It's practical. Sentimentality only makes it harder to leave. No sense prolonging the inevitable. 

No sense, really, in continuing to stand here, heart in his throat, watching the plane carry them off to their new life. 

He wants to walk back to the idling car, slide into the back seat and direct the driver to leave. He does not want to be here as the engines fire up, as the plane gathers speed down the runway, as it disappears into the sky. He does not want to watch as it shrinks, becoming just a glint of silver off the horizon.

He does not want to watch as John leaves him behind. 

He cannot make his feet move so he settles for turning away, his back to the plane. He hears the engines begin to whine and his breath stutters in his chest. His eyes are stinging. It must be the wind. He shuts them, takes a breath, then another. 

He doesn't look.

He hears when the plane begins to move, the engines ramping up from a whine to a roar, the wheels jolting along the asphalt. He wonders if John is looking at him through the window, but cannot make himself turn around to check. 

He doesn't look. 

The noise crests and begins to fade, leaving behind a heavy and horrible silence in its wake. 

Well. That's that, then. 

He takes a step towards the car, follows with another step. His feet are moving, this is good. He pointedly does not lift his head towards the sky, does not scan the clouds for a last glimpse. 

"Sherlock?"

He freezes. Does not turn around. 

"Sherlock, what—" 

It is John's voice, but that cannot be. John is gone. 

It would not be the first time that he's mistaken the John that lives in his head for the John that ~~orbits~~ orbited his life, but this _would_ be the first time he's been ambushed by him. 

There are footsteps behind him, coming closer. Painfully familiar, those footsteps. He knows that gait better than he knows his own. 

He swallows, squares his shoulders, turns around. 

It's John. Looking exhausted, rumpled, _bewildered._ And still walking towards Sherlock as though utterly unconcerned by the fact that his pregnant wife has somehow flown away without him. 

"John?" Sherlock asks, and his voice shakes a little. He should be asking John what the hell he's doing, not simply announcing the man's name. 

John is reaching out, one of his hands grabbing at Sherlock's shoulder. His grip is firm. He peers up into Sherlock's face with an expression of mild concern. 

"The plane," Sherlock says, astounded at the fact that his mouth continues to form words, _stupid_ words, obvious words. "You're still here." 

John looks even more confused now, and he offers up a tentative smile along with a head shake. "Yeah, Sherlock, of—of course I'm still here." 

"I don't understand—" Oh _god,_ might as well sign himself up for one of those blasted t-shirts too. He can get one in every color, for each day of the week, can cheerfully broadcast his stupidity to everyone who looks his way. His own voice sounds alarmingly lost to his ears. 

"Sherlock, were you—" John smiles then, suddenly, surprisingly. He is rolling his eyes at the same time and the overall picture is one of supremely exasperated affection. "Were you listening to me at all, earlier?" 

_I was memorizing your face,_ Sherlock does not say. "No point," is what he does say. "Mycroft already told me about the arrangement. Seemed a waste of time to go over it again." 

John is laughing now, his humorless, disbelieving laugh. The look on his face is still fond, however, and he is shaking his head slowly. "Yeah, except for the fact that I wasn't talking about any of that." 

"What?" Nothing John is saying makes any sense. This is horrible. Has he been drugged? He can think of no other reason why his brain could possibly be operating this sluggishly. 

"You are a complete and utter arsehole," John tells him, and then hugs him. 

Sherlock's heart gives an odd lurch and he falls forward into John's embrace without consciously intending to, his arms coming up of their own volition to wrap around him and pull him closer. Without any effort at all he has his face buried in John's hair, the short strands tickling his nose and he just breathes in, trying to soak up everything he can, cataloguing and memorizing before this is all yanked away again. His hands shake.

"Are you—taking a later flight?" Sherlock attempts. 

John laughs, his entire body jerking in Sherlock's arms. He shakes his head, his face pressing into the front of Sherlock's coat. After a moment, he pulls back. Sherlock releases him immediately, not wanting to overstay his welcome. 

"As I said _before—_ and you, being Mr I-Loathe-Repeating-Myself, should be paying attention here—" John pokes him with his index finger. "After—um—after everything that happened. I—"

Sherlock stares at him. Waits.

"Yes," John nods. "I did a lot of thinking, on the way. And when I got to the house, MI6 was already there." He cracks a humorless smile. "And none of them exactly looked like James Bond, by the way—" 

"Considering James Bond's physical attributes vary wildly from film to film, I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting—" 

"—and they were kind enough to share with Mary and I what I'd already begun to suspect." John swallows, blinks up at Sherlock. "The past is never as far behind as you think." 

"Obviously they offered you a deal." 

"Obviously," John says, gesturing to the empty tarmac. "Yes. The CIA is willing to work with Mary in exchange for information. They were willing to establish new identities in the United States for us. It would have involved a—a bit of plastic surgery, really, and new names, of course." 

Sherlock swallows, tries to imagine John with a new face. The idea is disconcerting. 

"So far so obvious," Sherlock says. "There was a reason I tuned you out in the first place." 

"Oh my god," John says, and his incredulous voice is still right on the edge of laughter. "Mary agreed to the deal. Of course she agreed to the deal. She'd have been crazy not to. But I—we talked, she and I. Really talked, which is something we haven't done since—well, since she shot you." 

Sherlock shakes his head. This feels monumental, somehow. Important. Terrifying. "Talked—about what?" 

"I love Mary," John says abruptly. 

"I should expect so, considering you married her." 

"Shut up," he says, without rancor. "Just—look, when you died, Sherlock, when you jumped off of that roof, I was in a bad way." 

"I have apologiz—"

"Shut _up,_ " he says again. "I, uh, I was in a better place than I was when I got back from Afghanistan, in some ways, because I—because you had—you fixed something in me, Sherlock. Something I didn't know was broken, and it's not just what you did with my leg, that first night. You gave me—purpose? I guess. Yeah. You gave me purpose. And then you jumped, and all of that purpose just—well." He breathes through his nose. Shuts his eyes for a moment. "I left Baker Street. Couldn't stand to be around all of that. But as much as—as horrible as it was, thinking you were dead, I was still myself. I had lost _you,_ and you were, uh, the most important thing in my life, really. But I still had myself, which is more than I could say after I got shot." 

"John," Sherlock shakes his head, frustrated, because he has no idea what John is saying but he thinks, no he _knows,_ that it's important. 

"Meeting you changed me for the better," John says. "And losing you was—um. It took me a while. Mary helped. A lot, actually. But the thing is, Sherlock, you were always there." 

"I can assure you, John, that I was not. The French waiter was, ah, what they call a one-time gig. For much of that time I wasn't even in London." 

"Yeah," John laughs. "Not at all what I meant, Sherlock." 

"Then what?" Sherlock is tired of this, all of this _not knowing._

"I've never been good at this," John sighs. "Meeting you made me a different person. In the same way that the army made me a different person. But when the army—when that wasn't _there_ anymore, it all stopped. I was empty without it, without something to drive me. When you weren't there anymore, I was—um—I was a lot of things." He steels his face, looks off at the horizon. "Sad. Confused. Guilty. Angry, too, yeah. But the effect you'd had on me it—it didn't just disappear when you were gone. So I was able to keep going. Find work, eventually. And then I met Mary, and—" 

"Hearts and flowers and pretty butterflies," Sherlock says impatiently, unable to keep his voice from edging into a high, mocking tone. "I know." 

"No," John laughs unsteadily. "You know what, I really don't think you do." 

"Explain." 

"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" John is nearly shouting. He catches himself, shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath. "The whole time, Sherlock. The whole time. You were there. It wasn't just grief. It was—it was just that, even gone, even _dead—_ " his voice cracks on that, just a little. "—you were still the single most important thing in my life." 

He blinked, slowly. Stared.

"I had to _make_ a place for Mary," John says. "She didn't take yours. I had to—Jesus, before I proposed, I had to take her to your grave to properly meet you. It was important to me. That she know." 

"She knew," Sherlock says softly, yielding to the heavy weight of realization. 

"Yes, well—" John laughs again, this time a bit self-consciously. One of his hands goes to the back of his head, scrubs through the hair there. "I swear I had a point when I started talking. Um. I think—" 

"Is that what you call this? _Thinking?_ I appreciate you pointing that out, as it was fairly unrecognizable as such." His mouth helpfully takes over for his paralyzed, addled brain. 

"I'm in love with you," John blurts. 

Sherlock's mouth clicks shut. His weakly flickering train of thought sputters, dies. For a moment there is nothing, no sound, not even his own heartbeat. 

"And you don't have to—you don't have to _panic,_ " John says, holding one hand out in a placating gesture. "I'm not trying—I don't have any expectations. It's just that I'm better when I'm around you. I'm happier when I'm around you. And every single time something happens to threaten that, it kills me a little bit. And it's been three times now, you know, where it seemed like you were gone. So the thought of, um, the thought of going away. With her. Forever. Was just—" He shakes his head, looks down at the ground as though it contains the answers to all of the mysteries of the universe. 

Sherlock takes a deep breath. The air is cold in his lungs. 

"I already resent her," John says. "I already don't trust her. It comes out in all kinds of ways, all the time. Everything she says, even the most innocuous things—it's always there. That doubt. And that's the kind of thing that would only—it would only get worse. In isolation. I might have—here—with other things to focus on, I might have been able to. But without that—I would hate her for taking me away. And she would hate me for treating her like our entire marriage was some sort of—some sort of noble sacrifice on my part."

"I'm not _panicking,_ " Sherlock snaps, because that is the only part of what John has said that he can formulate any response to. 

"She told me to stay," John says. "She didn't want me along." He shakes his head, directs a rueful smile at the ground. "No, that's not really true—she _did_ , but she didn't want me along if I didn't really want to be there. She didn't want to—didn't want us to raise our child like that. Hating each other. And I—I'm not a good liar, Sherlock—"

"Yes, I know--" 

"—and so here I am. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all. But I think it was the right choice." 

Sherlock nods, hunches up his shoulders a bit against the wind. "You said all of that before?" 

John laughs, then, the worry lines on his face smoothing out. He looks up towards the sky and then back down at Sherlock's face. "A bit more succinctly, yeah." 

Sherlock stares at him, trying to put the pieces together. His heart is beating very fast. It is hard to think. "But you got on the plane." 

"I helped Mary onto the plane." 

"Oh." _Oh_. 

Not leaving, then. _Not leaving._

Sherlock looks down at him, at his earnest, open, _pained_ face. 

After a long moment, it occurs to Sherlock that John is likely waiting for him to say something. He opens his mouth, shuts it again. He blinks, runs backward over everything that John has told him. _Not leaving._

"What," he says, stops, clears his throat. "What now?" 

"Um," John half-smiles, the expression bleeding into a wince. "Now, I apparently play a role for a while. There will be an accident? Or something. They were working through the details last night. I have some practice planning fake funerals, so—" 

"Ah," Sherlock says. 

"That was—" John gives a bitter little laugh. "Sorry."

"It's fine. It's—" 

"I go home," John says. "That's what happens now. I go home and in a little while someone is going to call me to give me some very bad news. And I—I deal with that. And eventually, when I've—when it's all _done,_ —I—I was hoping that I could come back. Home. To Baker Street." 

Sherlock blinks. "You're in love with me." 

John laughs, looks away. "I, uh, I did say that, yeah." 

"You—" 

"Sorry," John says. "It sounded better the first time around." 

"Sod the first time around," Sherlock says, because he hadn't been listening, hadn't been paying attention, but there was no way that whatever he'd missed had been _better._

John lifts his hand to scratch at the back of his neck, looks away. There is a tension around his eyes that wasn't there a moment ago. 

"Is this the part where I'm expected to tell you I'm in love with you as well?" Sherlock blurts, just as the silence between them grows too uncomfortable to bear. 

John blinks, looks back at him. He raises his brows. 

"I'm given to understand that there are certain—conventions—when it comes to making those kinds of statements." 

"Well," John says, his voice cautious. "Yes. But you're not really known for your adherence to convention." 

"Dull." 

John smirks, shakes his head. 

"Fine," Sherlock says. "I'm in love with you as well." 

John shuts his eyes. "Are you—look, don't just—don't just _say that_ because you think that you—" he stops, tips his head back, breathes out through his nose. "I don't have any expectations. You don't have to—it's fine. It's all fine. I just wanted you to know." 

"Oh for—" Sherlock yanks off his leather gloves, drops them onto the tarmac. Two quick steps brings him face-to-face with John, and he cups John's head in his hands, presses his warm palms against wind-chilled cheeks. He dips his head and presses cold lips to cold lips, cursing his height, cursing the angle, cursing his general lack of finesse. 

John stands rigid and shocked for a full ten seconds, just long enough for Sherlock to fear he'd got it wrong, and then he comes alive, his arms coming up to draw them closer together, his mouth parting on a warm exhalation that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. His fingers, cold-tipped and gloveless, raking through Sherlock's hair. 

Sherlock leans back, just barely, just enough to look directly into John's eyes.

"I—" he says, speaking clearly, leaving no room for argument or misconception, repeating himself _just this once_ for a good cause. "—am in love with you as well." 

A smile breaks over John's face, a genuine one, crinkling his eyes. It is the kind of smile that speaks of new beginnings, of hope amidst despair, of a hundred other romantic clichés that have suddenly come crashing, mercilessly, through the gates of Sherlock's mind palace.

"Oh," John says, sounding terribly pleased with himself. "Good. I was sort of hoping you'd say that."


	15. Allergies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by the-moon-loves-the-sea on Tumblr: _john insists it’s just allergies even though he’s obviously getting sick. sherlock tries to get him to take care of himself, in spite of his protests._
> 
> Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/165461212576/allergies)

*

John leaned forward to get a better look at the victim. 

"Blunt force trauma—" he said, and sneezed, violently. He pressed the back of his hand against his nose, sat back on his heels. "Something—something heavy, by the looks of it. Hit just the once. Cracked his skull." 

He sneezed again, rocking forward this time, managing to keep from losing his balance and embarrassing himself further, but only just.

"John," Sherlock said. 

He winced, pinched at his nose again, sniffed. Already, there was a tickle building in the back of his throat, a maddening irritation just out of reach. His mouth had gone dry. 

"Sorry," he said without turning around. He could feel the weight of Sherlock's gaze on his back, the buzzing thrum of his impatience. "Allergies have been acting up all day. Must be, ah—" 

Another sneeze, one he miserably tried to half-stifle with his hand. He tipped back, struggled to his feet, muscles aching, eyes watering. 

"John," Sherlock said again. 

"—Must be the victim's cologne," John attempted, his voice emerging thick and choked. He sniffed, hard, tried to regain his composure. His face heated. 

"Not allergies," Sherlock said, his voice much closer. John startled, turned around. Sherlock had stepped up right behind him. 

"It's just—" 

"Your cheeks are flushed. You're perspiring, but instead of opening your coat you've drawn it closer around yourself. The skin around your nostrils is chafed—"

"Hang on—" John said, irritated, bringing one hand up to brush at the tip of his nose. 

Sherlock ploughed on as if he hadn't spoken at all, "—consistent with frequent nose-blowing, which, clearly, hasn't come on due to an aversion to the—" he sniffed, grimaced, "—victim's appalling taste in cologne. You're moving slower than usual, your reaction times dulled—" his lip quirked, "—more than usual—" 

"Hey!" 

"You're displaying an increased sensitivity to bright lights and loud noise, bit of a headache, yes? Long story short, it's not allergies, you've come down with the flu."

"I'm a bloody doctor, I know how to recognize the flu—" 

"Don't they say something about doctors being terrible patients? I'm sure someone says that." Sherlock narrowed his eyes, his face suddenly quite close. His breath was warm against John's cheek.

John shivered, pulled his coat closer. The headache, which had been lurking just behind his eyes all day, had begun to throb. Sherlock's eyes were cool and pale and very, very close. 

"Bed," Sherlock said. He furrowed up his brow, seemed deep in thought. "And—soup?" 

John looked away, back towards the crumpled figure on the ground.

"Solved that already," Sherlock said.

_Bed,_ John thought. It sounded nice. It was rare that one of Sherlock's suggestions sounded nice. Though it wasn't quite four o'clock, and retreating to bed over something as minor as an allergy attack seemed a bit—

He shivered again, blinked, realized that Sherlock had ushered him along the street, was waving down a taxi. He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry and uncooperative. There was a steady thump in his head, a sick, nauseous feeling roiling in his gut. 

A weight on him, warm, pressing. Familiar. Wool under his nose, brushing against chafed and irritated skin. It smelled like Sherlock. 

Sherlock's coat, he realized absently, reaching up with shaking fingers to rub at the wool. Sherlock had covered him with his coat. They were crowded together in the back seat of a taxi. His heated forehead slumped against the cool windowglass.

The taxi moved slowly through traffic. He did not recall sitting down. They rounded a corner and he groaned, queasy, feeling as if his brain had come loose inside his skull and was sloshing drunkenly, unmoored. The window had fogged over from his breath. 

A dim, distant part of him thought that he ought to find this embarrassing. 

"Mmfine," he said. "Allergies." 

Sherlock made a soft scoffing noise next to him, said nothing. 

"Mmadoctor," he mumbled, his head lolling backwards, his eyes squinting shut against the daylight. 

He found himself outside, shivering in the brisk autumn air. Sherlock's coat, warm and overlong, draped over his shoulders like the world's heaviest cape. The door to their flat loomed ahead, the dark wood familiar, comforting. 

He took the stairs slowly, Sherlock's arm around his waist, each step harder than the last. His muscles trembled in protest. His head throbbed, his throat burned. He wondered why he'd never looked closely at the wallpaper before. It was endlessly fascinating, its patterns, the little whorls and dips, the edges that did not quite line up. 

Sherlock's coat was lifted from his shoulders, his own coat following. He mumbled a protest. There was a pillow, and soft bedding, and darkness, and he thought that he hadn't climbed nearly enough stairs to have reached where he was going but he was much too comfortable to do anything about that now. 

*

He woke to daylight, blinking, squinting, stiff and sore and hungry and far too warm. 

He was clearheaded, if still achy, and he shifted under the piled blankets, kicking them away, gasping in relief at the cool air. There were three half-empty mugs of tea on the nightstand, a bottle of paracetamol, a sweating glass of water. He reached for it, took a tentative sip. It was cool against the roof of his mouth. 

He set the glass back down onto the nightstand. Frowned. It was not his nightstand. 

He looked at the wall, at the carefully framed periodic table and insect sketches. Shut his eyes again with a groan. 

He stood slowly, carefully. Made his way towards the bathroom. Looked at his pallid, bleary reflection in the mirror. 

He wasn't sure how long he'd languished in Sherlock's room. More than one night, certainly. He had faint, hazy memories of Sherlock sitting by his bedside, of lukewarm tea sipped through a straw, of soup and even a wedge of orange, cool and sweet over his parched tongue. 

He relieved himself. Considered a shower, rejected the idea. Perhaps when he felt a bit steadier on his feet. He splashed cool water on his face instead, went out into the hallway, moving slowly. 

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table, reading. He was dressed, impeccable, not a hair out of place. He glanced up when he heard John's footsteps on the lino. 

"Ah, excellent," he said. "I'd hoped your fever had broken." 

John scratched at the back of his neck, leaned against the wall. "How long—um—" 

"Three days," Sherlock said.

John shut his eyes.

"It was the flu," Sherlock said. "Obviously." 

"Obviously," John agreed.

Sherlock studied him for a long moment, then shifted his attention back to the book in front of him. 

"Thank you," John said, quiet. 

"Hm?" 

"For the—for all of it. The bed. And the tea. And the—did you give me oranges?" 

"Why would I do that?" Sherlock did not look up from his book. 

John sighed. "Sherlock," he said. 

Sherlock slowly lifted his head. 

"Thank you," John said. 

Sherlock's lip twitched, a faint smile. Genuine. He looked down at the table, still smiling. "You're welcome."


	16. Not Unlike Clouds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock finds John after he's been "shot" by Eurus at the end of TLD. Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/165779051081/not-unlike-clouds)
> 
> I may wind up expanding this into a longer story at some point.

*

He opened his eyes, cotton-mouthed and gasping on the floor. His limbs were leaden, slow to respond. 

Sherlock was crouched over him, warm palm cupping his cheek, the tips of his long fingers just barely brushing against the hair at his temple. His other hand was up against John's neck, a light pressure, measuring his pulse. 

John worked his jaw, struggled for words. He tipped his head to the side. His vision swam. 

The red rug was scratchy under his cheek. There was grit caught in the fibres, little bits of dirt and gravel. Sherlock could probably identify where it had all come from, could map his steps through London by the dirt he'd left behind. 

He blinked once, hard, struggled to focus. The room was very bright. There were clouds behind Sherlock, grey clouds, thick and rolling along the far wall.

No. Not rolling. Static. Patterned. Wallpaper. 

"Wind," he said, because it seemed important. His voice was slurred, his tongue heavy and sluggish in his mouth. "East wind." 

Sherlock's grip tightened on him. He slipped his hand from John's pulse point to brace against his back, helped him to sit up. The room righted itself with some reluctance. 

John shifted, groaning a little bit, frowning as his hand pressed up against something sharp. Glass. Broken glass all around, a jagged mosaic surrounding him on the floor, and the ugly red rug seeping out beneath him like a bloodstain. 

The chair was tipped on its side, one cool metal leg pressed against his right arm.

There was a breeze. The sound of birds, of light traffic. John turned his head, slowly, and looked at the sliding glass door. 

It had been shattered. Knocked half off of the frame. 

Well, that explained the glass on the floor. 

Sherlock still had not spoken. His eyes were quite wide. There were tiny cuts on his hands, thin rivulets of blood where the glass had bitten. He hadn't wiped it away. 

His hands were shaking. 

There was a pink line just over his left eyebrow, new skin, freshly healed. Barely noticeable. 

John had put that line there. So. He noticed it. 

The silence had grown heavy, strange. Sherlock's face was pinched in a way that John could not recall ever haven seen before. He was not wearing his coat, nor his suit jacket. He did not typically go out in just his shirtsleeves, even in warm weather. 

John craned his neck, found the coat and jacket on the ground, tossed aside. A hasty, careless pile. Not at all the way Sherlock normally treated his clothes. John stared. Sherlock's gloves were slumped lifelessly by the door. They were torn, dark and wet at the edges of the frayed leather. 

He looked again at Sherlock's hands, at the blood smeared on his knuckles.

"I'm not dead," John said, just to have something to say. "That's—surprising." His throat was dry, and his voice emerged graveled and hoarse. It seemed very loud in the close stillness that had enveloped them. 

Sherlock's right hand went back to his pulse point, smoothing along the skin at his neck. His fingers quested, stilled as they found their target. His eyes did not leave John's. He shook his head, once, slowly. 

"Sherlock," John said. "You're scaring me, a bit, now." 

Sherlock blinked. Paused. Blinked again. His grip tightened, released. Life crept back into his face, his eyelids fluttering. He drew a breath. 

"This was in your neck," Sherlock said. His voice was very quiet. He lifted something from the floor, pinched between his fingers. A dart. 

"She shot me," John said. She had been holding a gun. A real gun. Of that, he was certain.

Sherlock jerked his head in the direction of the toppled chair. John shifted, craned his neck. 

There were two singed holes in the chair back, the white leather curling outward. Someone _(Eurus)_ had taken a knife to it, had split the fabric in a jagged grin beneath the holes, a grotesque parody of the smiling face on the wall in 221B. Chair stuffing poked through, soft and gauzy, not unlike clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet has now been expanded into a larger story: [Retrace](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13509090/chapters/30982956)


	17. Peas, Please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by viridiandecisions on Tumblr: _Sherlock accompanies John to the unfamiliar wilds of Tesco_
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/166468393141/peas-please).

*

John felt eyes on him and looked up, frowned suspiciously down the empty aisle. 

Life with Sherlock had made him paranoid, he decided, turning his attention back to the shelf. He added a tin of beans to his basket. 

He shopped slowly, not in any particular hurry to go home.

An ungodly wail from Sherlock's violin had jolted him out of bed earlier than he'd have liked, and he'd come downstairs to find Mycroft in the sitting room, perched on the end of John's chair, umbrella clasped loosely between his palms. Sherlock was at the window, his back to the room, sawing away like a madman. 

Mycroft had sighed and retreated after some time, but Sherlock had not let up.

So John had retreated as well. The fridge had been looking rather bare of late, and Sherlock had an alarming tendency to fill empty spaces with unpleasant things. 

Tesco was not particularly crowded in the early morning, and John meandered down each aisle, taking time to read product labels, letting the tension seep slowly from his shoulders. 

Except—

There it was again. That feeling of being watched. Of being _observed._

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He hesitated before stepping forward, fighting against his urge to turn around. He reached for a box of biscuits, kept his movements slow and steady. 

Then he dropped the box, spun around, dropping half into a defensive crouch even as he saw a flash of dark fabric disappear around the corner. 

He sighed, stood up straight. His back complained. 

"Sherlock," he said. 

He stared down the empty aisle for a long moment. Waited.

" _Sherlock._ "

Sherlock slowly emerged from behind a display of pasta sauce. There was a brief flicker of something sheepish on his face, immediately swept away in favour of a blank, haughty expression. 

John pinched the bridge of his nose, looked up at the ceiling. Looked back at Sherlock.

"What are you doing here?" 

Sherlock cleared his throat, took a step forward. "Shopping." 

"Nope." 

"I needed—" Sherlock paused, looked to his left. Picked up a jar. Squinted at it. "Alfredo sauce." 

"Really," John said. He set his basket on the ground, folded his arms.

"Yes?" 

Sherlock was sharply dressed, as composed as ever. When John had shut the door to their flat behind him, he had been pyjama-clad, his hair wild. 

"Did you follow me here?" 

"Why would I do that?" 

"Not actually an answer, Sherlock." 

Sherlock stared back at him, his brow furrowed. He did not respond. 

"Sherlock."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, put the jar of sauce back on the shelf. "You never get the right biscuits." 

"What?" 

"Biscuits, John." Sherlock came towards him, moving quickly, with that startling grace he possessed. He bent down, picked up the box that John had dropped. "I don't like the plain ones." 

"You always eat them." 

Sherlock made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. He put the box back on the shelf. Selected a different box. Dropped it into John's basket. 

"You could have just texted," John said, staring down at the box, feeling oddly fond. He looked up at Sherlock, dropped his voice. "'John, while you're at the shops, could you pick me up some of those chocolate biscuits?' You know. Something like that." 

"Why would I do that?"

"Oh, you're right. Foolish of me. Far easier to rush around like a madman so you can get dressed and follow your flatmate to Tesco. Were you just going to stalk me until I noticed you?" 

"Took you longer than I expected. Civilian life has dulled your instincts." 

"Thanks for that," John flashed a quick, sharp smile, turned away. "Any more special requests, or am I allowed to finish shopping in peace?" 

He made it three steps before Sherlock said, "Peas." 

He stopped, turned back. "What?"

"Peas. You make that—thing. Sometimes. With peas." 

John gaped at him. "You—like that?" 

Sherlock cleared his throat, looked away. "It's not bad." 

"You never said." 

"I'm sure I did," Sherlock said. He was staring at the shelves, at the jars and tins and boxes, anywhere but at John. 

"All right," John said. There was a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. He could not, for the life of him, quite say why. "I'll make it tonight." 

"Fine," Sherlock said. "Good." 

He started to whirl away, his coat swishing behind him. 

"Yeah—no," John said. 

Sherlock froze. Turned back. Frowned.

"If I'm cooking you dinner, the least you can do is carry the basket." 

Sherlock wrinkled up his nose. But he did not resist as John nudged the basket handle into his hand. 

"Besides," John said. "I'm pretty sure the butcher is hiding a dark secret. You might want to look into it."

"He's having an affair with the checkout girl. Honestly, John, don't you pay attention to _anything?_ "

John chuckled, feeling strangely warm and content as Sherlock fell into step beside him. 

"Well go on, then," he said, letting their shoulders bump together. "Tell me what I missed."


	18. A Hint of Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by ennisgarland on Tumblr: _i love handkisses. serious handkisses._
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/166470496846/a-hint-of-warmth).
> 
> The incredibly talented Khorazir has produced [the most beautiful art](https://khorazir.tumblr.com/post/166894009073/inktober2017-inspired-by-the-touching-a-hint-of) for this little ficlet. This is so lovely, I can't thank you enough!

*

They ran together down the alley, shoes slapping against wet pavement. Blood roared in John's ears, his heart pounding, veins singing with the thrill of the chase. 

They rounded the corner, Sherlock just slightly ahead, and John heard the distorted crack, the muted sound of gunfire ricocheting against brick. 

He dove, getting one arm around Sherlock's waist, crashing against him and dragging him down behind an overflowing skip. 

Sherlock struggled to sit up, opened his mouth, and John clamped his hand over it, hooking his chin over Sherlock's shoulder, pulling him back against the damp brick. He was breathing hard, heart thundering. 

"Are you all right?" John asked, his voice a low, harsh whisper against Sherlock's ear. He did not take his hand away from Sherlock's mouth. 

Sherlock hesitated, then nodded, once, briskly. He brought up his own hand to cover John's where it pressed, his fingers chilled and damp. He squeezed, once, a silent thanks. 

John listened, tried to hear past his own crashing pulse, the ragged sound of Sherlock's breathing. There were voices, footsteps. Going away or coming closer? It was hard to say, with the way the sound carried in the thick fog. 

The ground was cold, damp. The brick was wet and uncomfortable against his back, the chilled metal of the skip sharp against his shoulder. Sherlock was startlingly heavy and warm against him. Hot, humid breath puffed against John's hand, slowing, calming. 

The voices were retreating, he thought. Disappearing into the fog.

He started to withdraw his hand, was startled when Sherlock tightened his grip.

"What—" John started, and his voice cut out as Sherlock shifted against him, lips ghosting very carefully, very deliberately against his hand. A kiss, warm and soft and unmistakable, shockingly tender. 

Sherlock's fingers squeezed his again, and then dropped away. His breathing quickened. His shoulders had stiffened up. 

"Sherlock," John said. He kept his hand against Sherlock's mouth, not pressing. After a moment's hesitation, he let it fall away. Sherlock did not turn to face him. 

The alley had gone silent but for the gentle patter of rain. 

"Sherlock," John said again. His hand was growing cold. He could still feel a hint of fading warmth where Sherlock had pressed his lips. 

Sherlock flinched from his name, unfolded from the ground in a rush. John scrambled to his feet, pulling himself up against the skip, his knees creaking. 

He reached out and just managed to catch Sherlock by one damp coat sleeve. Tugged him gently backwards. Brought him around so he could see his face. 

Sherlock's eyes had gone quite wide, his face pale. He looked stricken, horror-struck, terrified in a way that made John's skin crawl, made him want to look over his shoulder to verify that there was nothing lurking just there in the shadows, ready to pounce. 

But Sherlock's gaze was not directed over his shoulder. Sherlock's gaze was fixed on him, rigid and frozen like a man awaiting sentencing for a terrible crime. 

It wrenched something loose in John's chest, and he stepped forward, aching, _aching_ at the way that Sherlock reared back like a spooked animal. He relaxed his grip on Sherlock's coat sleeve, let his hand slip down along the slim wrist, tangled their fingers together. 

He looked at Sherlock, and Sherlock looked down at their hands, his eyes large and unblinking. 

Carefully, slowly, John lifted their joined hands to his mouth, pressed his lips against Sherlock's knobby knuckles. He squeezed Sherlock's fingers, gentle, reassuring. 

Sherlock blinked once, then again. He lifted his eyes to meet John's. There was an expression on his face that John had never seen before, something shocked and vulnerable. 

Somewhere in the distance, through the fog, someone shouted. There was a sound of breaking glass.

Sherlock blinked, looked towards the sound, then back at John. He opened his mouth, shut it again. Looked at their hands. 

John squeezed his hand one more time, let it drop with some reluctance. 

"Later," he said, smiling as he inclined his head towards the alley, where darkness and danger beckoned. "Yeah?"

Sherlock blinked at him again, and then seemed to gather himself together in a rush. He nodded, a smile curling at the edge of his mouth. 

They went together into the fog.


	19. Afloat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by pagimag on Tumblr: _The story behind Balloon John_
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/166475061731/afloat).

*

It was later, after the pulse-pounding rush to the hospital, after wrenching Culverton Smith away from where he loomed, flushed and dangerous, over Sherlock's damaged frame, after the crackling tension and nervous silences and raw, disbelieving laughter—after all of that, that John found it. 

He'd left St Caedwalla's in an odd state, at once jittery with nervous tension and sluggish with a bone-deep exhaustion he thought he might never again shake off. 

Mrs Hudson's Aston Martin, with its gleaming paint and butter-soft leather seats, had only added to the surreal quality of his evening. 

He'd driven it back to Baker Street, had travelled slowly, cautiously, as if to make up for his frenzied, harried driving only hours before. His hands shook where they gripped the wheel. 

He'd gone inside, had found Mrs Hudson not in her own flat but upstairs in Sherlock's, tidying. 

She'd taken one look at John and burst into tears, and he'd found himself hugging her, making vague soothing noises and stroking her back with a hand that shook too badly to do anything else.

"Oh, John, we nearly lost him this time, didn't we?" she'd said against his shirt, and he'd swallowed around the lump in his throat, unable to respond. 

_My fault,_ he thought grimly. _My fault this time. Again._

"It's late," he said, finally. He gestured vaguely around the flat. The drug paraphernalia was gone, courtesy of Mycroft, but the room was in a considerable state of disarray. Moreso than usual. And that was saying something. 

"I don't want him to come home to it like this," she said, pursing her lips.

He opened his mouth to dissuade her, to tell her that, as Sherlock had proven perfectly capable of making the mess in the first place, he should be responsible for cleaning it up. Instead he found himself saying: "Let me help you." 

He thought of Sherlock, gaunt and pale and alarmingly fragile in that hospital bed, his face bruised, his eye red and inflamed. The smile that had tried to curl at the edge of his mouth regardless, the way he'd met John's gaze, the trust that had, somehow, survived harsh words and fists. 

He had not doubted that John would come for him. 

He had no idea how close he'd come.

And so John busied himself tidying the flat alongside Mrs Hudson, stacking up papers and books and sweeping away broken glass. And it was then, while lifting a pile of waterlogged books from his chair, that he found it. 

The wilted remains of a red balloon, drooped, the hastily-drawn black lines muddled together into something unrecognizable. 

He set the books down, picked up the balloon, stared. 

It seemed like a relic from another time, from a time where he still knew how to smile, where he didn't feel like a stranger in his own skin. 

Sherlock had been sitting across from him in his chair, alternating between lengthy silences and rambling monologues on strange and seemingly unrelated topics. John had indulged him for a while, but had eventually found himself bored and restless. He'd gone to the window and watched the traffic creep by down on Baker Street, and his attention caught on a bundle of balloons tied to a table in front of Speedy's. He'd been seized with a fit of mischief—he'd always enjoyed teasing Sherlock, particularly in the odd moments when he found himself able to wrangle the upper hand—and so he'd gone downstairs and pilfered one of the balloons. 

Initially, he'd intended to take advantage of Sherlock's distraction (the world's most observant man, indeed!) and simply pop the balloon behind his chair, startling him, but Mrs Hudson had caught him on his way back up the stairs and asked if he'd mind helping with her Sudoku, and he decided that, rather than startle Sherlock into a fit of pique, it might be nice to buy himself a little time to himself. 

So he and Mrs Hudson had stood in the kitchen and tittered to themselves while he drew a little face on the balloon, and they'd giggled quietly behind their hands as John had tied the balloon to his chair, not making any particular attempt to hide what he was doing, while Sherlock stared up at the ceiling and droned on about soil composition and various species of jellyfish. 

And of course Sherlock had eventually caught on, and he'd been startled and blinking and bemused, and John had laughed, and—

Christ, how had it all gone so wrong?

And Sherlock had kept it. He'd kept the stupid red balloon with its stupid drawn on face, and he'd left it in John's chair even as it withered and drooped, even as Sherlock himself had begun to wither and droop. 

_Go to hell,_ Mary had told him, and Sherlock had leapt straight down into the flames, unhesitating. 

_My fault,_ John thought again, and he pressed a trembling hand against his mouth, breathed in sharply through his nose. 

"John?" Mrs Hudson said, and she put a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

"I'm sorry," he said, straightening up. He set the withered little balloon back down on his chair. "I have to—I just—" 

She smiled at him, a tired, watery little smile, and he knew she understood. 

*

There was an officer posted outside of Sherlock's door at St Caedwalla's, but he merely looked up and nodded wordlessly at John as he approached. 

_You should stop me,_ John thought, wildly. _I'm the one that put him here, don't you know that?_

He went through the door, stood looking down at Sherlock's huddled frame in the bed. Listened to the rhythmic beeping of the monitors. 

His cane was gone. Evidence, now. They'd be listening to it down at the Yard, unspooling all of Smith's secrets. Listening to the rasp of what had very nearly been Sherlock's last breaths. 

He took a shaky breath, went around the side of the bed, sat down. Fiddled with the item he'd brought, tied a string with fumbling fingers. 

Sherlock's skin was sallow and pale in the dim light. His eyes were closed, his breath steady. 

"Are you all right?" Sherlock rumbled without opening his eyes. 

John jolted where he sat, smiled in spite of himself, scrubbed his hands over his face. "Christ, Sherlock, I thought you were sleeping." 

"I was," Sherlock said, his eyes slowly creeping open. "I'm not now." 

John flinched away from that gaze, unable to look very long at that angry red sclera. 

"Just—" John said, and then he sighed. "Just making sure. That everything is—that no one else—" 

"He was working alone," Sherlock said. "I'm certain. Well. Fairly certain." 

"Right," John said. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable, feeling raw and exposed. He was not sure why he had come. 

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asked again. 

"I'm the one who should be asking you that." 

Sherlock shrugged, just a faint shift of thin shoulders. 

"I should go," John said. "Let you sleep." 

"Mm," Sherlock said, his voice heavy. His eyes drooped, but he turned his head and fixed his gaze on John. "Thank you." 

"No," John said. He laughed, once, a miserable sharp little sound. "You definitely should not be thanking me." 

Sherlock made a low sound, unhappy. His eyes fluttered, bleary, struggling to focus. 

"Look," John said, quiet. He set a hesitant hand on top of Sherlock's, surprised by the warm flush of his skin. He'd been expecting his hand to be cold. "I don't know why we—why this is—" he stopped, looked up.

Sherlock breathed in quietly. His eyes were fixed on where John's hand covered his. 

"Rest," John said, finally. "Get your strength back. The—" he paused again, pressed his lips together before continuing. "The world needs Sherlock Holmes." 

"Mm," Sherlock said. There was a small smile in his voice, a weary amusement. He shifted his fingers under John's, a quiet acknowledgement. Shut his eyes. 

"And so do I," John said, his voice so low he doubted Sherlock had even heard over the beep of the machines. He cleared his throat, stood up. 

Sherlock did not make another sound. His breathing had evened out once more.

He patted the top of Sherlock's hand once more, then turned and left the room. He paused once more in the doorway, looked back.

Sherlock's face had gone slack and peaceful with sleep. And bobbing next to his bed, tied to the chair that John had just vacated, close enough to keep watch, was a smiling red balloon.


	20. Sharp and Sweet and Sour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by anotherwellkeptsecret on Tumblr: _The slowest, sweetest, gentlest first kiss you can possibly imagine._
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/166523556516/sharp-and-sweet-and-sour).

*

It was a lovely, crisp day, and Sherlock—in an uncommonly good mood—left the window open behind him after forcing it open to gain entry to the suspect's flat. 

The curtains fluttered in the breeze, carrying a myriad of vivid city smells, unmistakable London air, sharp and sweet and sour all at once. 

He breathed in deep, then turned away, clapping his hands together as he surveyed the cluttered room. 

Dust, dust everywhere, and that was _wonderful,_ he could read years' worth of history in dust, he could trace his way backwards through every book the man had read, every single move he'd made in the flat right up until the moment he'd—

"Christ—" John wheezed from the window, grasping the sill and dragging himself inside. "A little help—" he dropped onto the ground, back against the wall, breathing hard. "—would have been nice." 

"You managed just fine," Sherlock said, smiling a little bit. 

"Thought you were going to go around back and unlock the door." 

"I'd have gotten there eventually." 

John made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat, stood up. Moved to shut the window behind him. 

"Leave it." 

John paused, gloved hands on the window frame. "Someone might see." 

"Nothing out of the ordinary about an open window on a nice day." 

"You _are_ aware that breaking and entering is not actually legal?" But John stepped away from the window without shutting it. 

Sherlock smiled again, an almost involuntary pull at the corner of his mouth. He liked John like this, sharp-tongued yet indulgent. 

"All right," John said, letting his hands drop to his sides. "What are we looking for?" 

"Dust." 

"Well. Plenty of that to go around." 

Sherlock could not seem to stop smiling. Perhaps it was the weather. "Exactly." 

"Will any dust do, or are you looking for something in particular? Clogged ceiling vent, perhaps? Maybe some dryer lint?" John was looking at him, his brows raised, something approaching amusement in his face. Ah. Teasing, then.

"Our suspect has a rather extensive personal library," Sherlock said, tearing his gaze away to look at the shelves that stretched floor to ceiling along the wall. He scanned the rows of books, eyes flitting across faded, dusty spines. "Including several volumes on rare poisons." 

"Pot, kettle," John said. 

Sherlock turned to look at him, narrowed his eyes. John offered up a shrug and a small smirking twist of his lips. 

"He's more of a collector than a reader," Sherlock said, turning back towards the books. "You can see from the dust that most of these haven't been touched in years." 

"He does seem to lack a certain standard of cleanliness," John agreed mildly. 

"Except—" Sherlock smiled at a smear on a lower shelf, a small half-moon pattern where clean wood gleamed through. He framed it with his hands, measuring. The perfect size for a rested knee. He allowed his gaze to climb upward, catching the imprint of fingertips in the thick dust, and there, _there_ , the place where a book had been pulled free, dislodging cobwebs and ancient dust bunnies. 

"A little light reading?" 

Sherlock rummaged around in his coat, withdrew a crinkling evidence bag, a bloodstained book resting within. 

John groaned. "Did you steal that?" 

"Borrowed." 

"What are you—" 

"Just wanted to be sure," Sherlock said, and he grinned, a quick flash of teeth, the kind of dangerous grin that John usually responded favorably to. He leaned back and looked at the gap on the shelf, looked at the book in his hand. 

"Looks like it fits," John said.

"Hm," Sherlock said, and he moved carefully, delicately, resting his knee in the smooth clean space left behind, pressing the very tips of his gloved fingers where they would not disturb fresh trails of dust. He lifted himself slowly, with utmost caution, climbing until he was eye to eye with the gap. 

"Sherlock," John said. His voice was muffled, slightly. As if he was speaking through clenched teeth. 

"Mm," Sherlock said, distracted, scanning the shelf for anything else, anything he might have missed in his first assessment. It was beautiful, eloquent, the way that history was written into dust. 

The shelf under his foot creaked, an alarming, sharp sound, and Sherlock's pulse jumped. 

There were hands on his waist, strong hands, sure hands, _John's_ hands, steadying him, holding him still.

"Careful," John said, his voice low. "Or you'll bring the whole thing down with you." 

Sherlock opened his mouth to retort but found he could not speak, not with John leaning back, taking his weight, easing him off of the shelves and back down towards the ground. 

He stood facing the books, mind blank, pulse racing, John breathing close at his back. 

"All right?" John asked, when the moment had stretched too long. 

Sherlock turned, slowly, straightening up. Meaning to say: _My weight was perfectly balanced. There was no danger of the shelf breaking_ and instead clearing his throat and meeting John's eyes and saying nothing, nothing, because John was very close and had not yet moved to step away. 

"Sherlock," John said, and he was so close his breath puffed against Sherlock's face. The window was open behind him, letting in that sharp-sweet-sour _dangerous_ air, and John was close, he was so close, so close and so utterly beloved and just like that, after years and _years_ of careful restraint, all of Sherlock's self-control simply fluttered away on a gentle breeze. 

He only needed to tilt his head slightly to bring his lips against John's, to slide his nose along John's cheek, to catch John's warm surprised breath in his lungs. 

They stood like that for a moment, lips ghosting together, just breathing. Sherlock's back brushed against the shelf and he spared a brief thought for the dust, and then John made a noise in the back of his throat, a noise that was pained and joyful all at once, and his hands came up to cup Sherlock's face, to press against the heat rising in his cheeks, and Sherlock thought quite clearly _sod the dust_ and then on the heels of that came: _this moment has been written in dust, scrawled here on the shelves for anyone to see._

He let the evidence bag drop, the book hitting the ground with a muffled thud.

John's hands on his face, cradling him, thumbs moving against his cheeks. John's mouth on his, soft and warm and wondering, their breaths mingling. 

Sherlock realized that he had, at some point, tangled his hands up in John's coat, had grasped at the collar of it and had wound the edges around his fingers, pulling him closer, locking him in place. 

"Oh," he said, mumbling against John's lips, because each gentle slide, each damp press, each tug and pull and nibble and rasp of chapped skin was a revelation. "Oh." 

John laughed, not a cruel or mocking sound, but a soft huff that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest. He laughed and Sherlock could _taste_ it, sweet against his lips. 

"Oh?" John said, nudging Sherlock's nose with his own. 

"I've just realized—" Sherlock said, and his voice was alarmingly unsteady. "Well. No. That's not quite accurate. I've known for some time. That I—well. But. It hadn't seemed—"

"Oh," John said, and there was a surprised light in his eyes, a dancing mischief that Sherlock hadn't seen in a very long time. He looked younger, somehow. Unburdened.

"Is that—" Sherlock hesitated, feeling uncertain and clumsy and much too slow. His pulse skittered under his skin, joyful, ebullient bursts. 

"I don't know how you didn't know," John said. He shook his head, shut his eyes, smiled.

Sherlock looked at that smiling mouth and thought: _I've kissed those lips._

"I—" Sherlock said. 

"Me too," John said. He slipped one of his hands back, running it through Sherlock's hair, settling it on the back of Sherlock's neck, skin warm and slightly sweat-damp. He leaned up and Sherlock let himself be kissed. "Just—me too." 

"Oh," Sherlock said again, and it was all forgotten for a moment, the dust, the books, the crisp air and the sharp-sweet-sour London smell. He was smiling. He couldn’t seem to stop. He thought perhaps it had never been the weather at all. He thought perhaps it had always been John.


	21. Dreams He Doesn't Have

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/169524048651/dreams-he-doesnt-have)

*

Sherlock doesn't dream, but if he did, it would go like this: 

John, small and pale and unhappy in a grey-walled room, his lips pinched, his shoulders back. Brave. 

"Don't I get a say in this?" 

_Soldiers,_ Mycroft reminds him. 

The gun is heavy in his hand. He has never been a good shot. That has never bothered him, because he has John. 

"He's right," John says, and he squares his shoulders and waits. 

_Brainpower,_ Mycroft says. And then: _Make your goodbyes._

Sherlock does not want to make his goodbyes. He has spent far too much time on goodbyes, in balance. 

John nods at him. His gaze is steady. He is afraid, but accepting. 

Mycroft is speaking, but Sherlock is not listening. He is memorizing John's face. 

"Sherlock," John says, and there is an unamused smile on his face, his hands have curled up against his thighs. "Please. Just get it over with." 

_Don't prolong his agony,_ Mycroft drones. 

"Don't prolong my agony," John echoes, and he is joking, he is _making a joke,_ and the sight of him, brave and waiting, is at once the most terrible and the most wonderful thing that Sherlock has ever seen. 

Sherlock shakes his head, because he cannot. 

_Do it,_ Mycroft says.

_Do it,_ Eurus says. 

"Sherlock," John says, and he steps up close, very close, so that they are breathing the same air. His brow is pinched tight with stress. His eyes are sad. "I know," he says. "I _know._ But you have to do this, and you have to keep going. The plane, remember? All those people?" 

"I don't care about people," Sherlock says. _I care about you,_ he doesn't say. 

"Yeah you do," John says. His voice is gentle. 

"John," Sherlock says. 

"Complete your mission, Soldier," John says. He shuts his eyes. 

Sherlock lifts the gun, presses the muzzle against John's chest, against his warmly beating heart. 

_Hurry up,_ Mycroft says. 

"Do it," John says. His eyes are still closed. 

The room blinks red and Moriarty's voice fills the air, singsong and cheerful, invasive.

"Sherlock," John says, and there is a subtle tremor in his voice. He is straining to keep up the appearance of steady calm. 

Sherlock kisses him. He has always wanted to. There has never been the right time. This is not the right time either, but it is the only time he has. 

John inhales in surprise, pulls a bit of Sherlock's breath into his lungs. 

His eyes fly open when Sherlock pulls the trigger.

—and Sherlock's eyes fly open in the claustrophobic quiet darkness of his own bedroom. His limbs are trembling and cold. His face is wet. 

He doesn't dream. 

He has often convinced his mind of certain things, simply by tenacity of repetition. 

So. He doesn't dream. 

Except his door creaks open, and there is John's face in the moonlight, looking small and pale and unhappy. 

"Sherlock," John says. 

Sherlock looks at him, and then looks away. In his dreams (the dreams he doesn't have) he sees the life vanish from John's eyes. It happens all at once, like flipping a switch. 

"You were crying out," John says. He sounds uncomfortable, caught-out. 

"I don't dream," Sherlock tells him. 

"Of course you don't," John says, and there is a tired good humour in his voice. He comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, then sighs and scoots up against the headboard, gathers Sherlock close. He does not seem to mind the cold sweat that has soaked through Sherlock's clothing. 

Sherlock finds himself too stunned to respond. Too stunned to protest. 

"I shot you," he says. It is absurd, because it happened in a dream. A dream he didn't have.

"Mm," John says. He does not appear surprised, or put off. "Hope you made it quick. It's worse, bleeding out. Fading away." 

Sherlock blinks, reconsiders. John's face, alive and then not. All at once. The flip of a switch. The pull of a trigger. Thinks of him instead draining away, bit by bit. Blue desert sky. Indifferent sunlight. 

He shivers. 

"Has this been happening every night?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Sherlock," John says. "There are so few areas where I have the upper hand on you. But this is one of them, I think."

"Every night," Sherlock says. "Since." 

"Always the same?" 

"Details vary." 

John is silent for a long time. His chest lifts and falls with steady, comforting breaths underneath Sherlock's head. His heartbeat thumps in Sherlock's ear. 

"Does this help?" John asks, after a long time. He sounds genuinely curious. 

Sherlock knows that John has had nightmares. He wonders, for the first time, if there had ever been anyone on hand to hold him through them. If he'd ever wanted that. 

"Yes," Sherlock says. The admission feels momentous. 

"Good," John says, quiet. He shifts so that he is lying down, pulls the duvet up and over himself. His grip slackens, but he does not let go. "Good."


	22. The Abominable Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [viridiandecisions](https://viridiandecisions.tumblr.com/), who had prompted: Sherlock meeting Harry. 
> 
> Story contains references to alcoholism and addiction.

*

Sherlock pushes his chair back from the microscope. He stretches, stands up. Considers sending a text to Lestrade. Decides it would be far more enjoyable to deliver his deductions in person. 

He goes into the sitting room, picks up his coat. 

Harry is at the desk, hunched over her aging laptop, typing. Based on the tense set of her shoulders and the force with which she strikes the keyboard, he finds it likely that she is, yet again, attempting conversation with the Abominable Brother. 

Harry's complaints about her Abominable Brother are varied, thorough, and well-documented. They would be impressive, were they not so incredibly tedious.

"You going out, then?" she asks. She does not look away from the screen.

"Yep." 

"Not bringing back any dead bits, right?" 

"One never knows," he says. 

Their flatshare is going on two months now. It had only been meant to last a fortnight.

She is timely with her rent and goes out most nights. He supposes it could be worse. 

"My brother—" she starts. She spits the word _brother_ like it's something foul. He can sympathize.

Yet sympathy really only goes so far.

"No time to chat. Bit of a rush. Life or death situation. You know how it is," he says. He lets the door slam behind him as he leaves.

*

"How's the flatshare working out?" Lestrade asks, after Sherlock has finished helpfully pointing out all of the obvious clues he'd missed regarding a spate of recent murders. 

Sherlock frowns at him.

"She hasn't moved out yet, has she? Some of us have been taking bets." 

Lestrade seems to find the circumstances surrounding Sherlock and Harry's cohabitation to be an inexplicable source of amusement. It has grown tiresome. 

Sherlock had met Harry in a holding cell at New Scotland Yard two months prior. 

He had made the regrettable error of assuming that all Detective Inspectors possessed Lestrade's ability to endure the occasional insult in service of the greater good.

She'd been picked up for drunk and disorderly behaviour, and had passed the evening alternating between vomiting into a bucket and unleashing frightfully creative streams of profanity on anyone who dared pass by the door.

He'd looked at her, at the sheen of sweat on her face, at the bleary glaze in her red-rimmed eyes, at the tan line on the ring finger of her left hand, and he'd made his deductions. 

"Recently separated. Divorced? Even if the paperwork's not gone through yet, it might as well be a done deal," he'd said. "You've clearly decided it's time to celebrate your newfound freedom with a big night out." 

She'd stared at him for a long time. Long enough that he'd wondered what might come next—more profanity, or the swing of a fist. Her knuckles were red. It would not be her first punch of the night. 

She had not sworn at him, nor had she assaulted him. Instead, she'd started to laugh. 

"Neat trick," she'd said.

He'd considered her for a moment. 

"You'll be looking for a place to live," he'd said, finally. 

And oh, what a stroke of good fortune! He'd only just been evicted from his Montague Street flat (an unfair turn of events in his opinion—his landlord's stipulation had been no _chemical_ experiments, he'd never once mentioned _biological_ ) and though he'd secured rooms in central London at a deep discount from a grateful former client, he'd still come up a few hundred quid short on his first month's rent. A flatshare would do quite nicely.

"Temporarily," she'd admitted. "I've got a friend moving into a new place in about two weeks. We're planning on sharing." 

By the time Lestrade had arrived (half-asleep, mussed and very much put out at being summoned in the middle of the night) to smooth things over and ensure Sherlock's release, they'd hashed out the details of their temporary arrangement. 

Two weeks has turned into four. One month has turned into two. 

"No," Sherlock says. "She hasn't moved out yet." 

Not so temporary after all, it seems. 

*

The subject of the Abominable Brother came up immediately, and often. 

Lugging a box of her belongings up the stairs to 221B, Harry had spit out: "So nice of my _brother_ to offer to help, don't you think?" 

Sitting on the sofa, aiming a baleful stare at her silent mobile: "I guess I gave him a phone so he could go ahead and _not_ call me, then." 

Stumbling home late, hair hanging in her face, voice slurred: "Always liked Clara more than me, the bastard." 

Looking aghast at the comfortable secondhand chair Sherlock has brought home to complement his own by the fireplace: "You didn't get that for me, did you? It's horrid! Exactly the sort of thing _he'd_ love." 

Sherlock does not care to know much about the Abominable Brother. It proves a difficult subject to avoid, and, in spite of his intentions, he finds himself idly deducing details.

Military man, invalided home from a long deployment. Clear disapproval of his sister's lifestyle. Said disapproval presumably not related to her sexuality, as she'd mentioned (more than once) his friendship with and fondness towards her ex-wife. The drinking, most likely. Perhaps the divorce as well. 

Such a man would likely be rigid in his assumptions. Unyielding. 

The Abominable Brother lives in London, though he does not visit. He has suffered a grievous injury in the war (Sherlock imagines all manner of fascinating facial disfigurements and burn scarring patterns until Harry lets slip that a very ordinary bullet had done the deed) and has apparently returned home a changed man.

"Not that he was ever anything great to begin with," Harry adds. 

*

Mycroft disapproves mightily of Harry, which Sherlock finds a delightful and unexpected perk. 

Harry needs very little urging to behave rudely towards him. She seems to derive great joy from it. Likely out of solidarity over the matter of Abominable Brothers. 

*

"Mrs Hudson is not your housekeeper," Harry says, brandishing a jar of eyeballs. "And neither am I." 

She shakes them with a bit more force than is necessary to make her point.

"Not in the microwave," she says. 

Temporary, he reminds himself. The situation is only temporary.

*

"So you solve things," Harry says as he comes through the door. Her voice is a little too bright, a little too interested.

She is sitting cross-legged on the sofa, balancing her laptop. She has been browsing job postings. Again.

"Yes," he says. 

"My friend's cat—"

"No," he says.

"—has been missing for three days—" 

"No," he says again. "I solve crimes. Important crimes. _Interesting_ crimes." 

"It's very cold outside," she says. She purses her lips, looks towards the window.

*

"So you solve crimes," Harry says as he comes through the door. She looks up from her laptop. There is a smile on her face, a smug one. 

"Yes," he says. He is cold and irritated, brushing leaves and cat hair from his coat. 

"And you also help people find their missing pets." 

"No," he says, because it won't do, having this sort of thing get out. "Not _people_ and not _pets,_ plural. One cat. One time." 

"Right," she says. 

He stares at her for a moment. Her face is tinged blue in the glow from her laptop screen. "You've been browsing job postings off and on for the last three days, but have yet to send off your C.V. to a single one. You tell yourself you're being choosy, but you're actually worried—quite rightly—that they'll look at your patchy work history and recent unemployment and reject your application immediately." 

She stares at him for a long moment. He braces for a fight. 

"Yeah," she says, and sighs. Shuts her laptop. "Yeah." 

*

"Everyone always wants to tell me what to do," Harry says. She is drunk. It is three-fifteen in the morning and she is still wearing her coat, trailing the chill of the winter night behind her. She seems to have lost one of her shoes. 

He does not move from his perch at the kitchen table. She stumbles into the flat, kicks off her remaining shoe. Makes her way towards the sofa. 

"Clara was always telling—always telling me what to do," she says. She takes her phone out of her bag, fumbles to plug in her charger. She misses—once, twice, three times, and then gives up and drops it face down onto the coffee table. Her voice lilts up, mocking. "You drink too much, Harry. You need to take care of yourself, Harry. Never shuts up about it." 

Harry is an alcoholic. 

This does not trouble Sherlock. He is intimately familiar with addicts, and does not begrudge them their vices. 

Harry drops onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. She pulls the knit blanket down around herself, burrows into it. 

"He's the same. Always telling me what to do. But I'm fine. He's the one living in a bedsit," she says. 

Sherlock does not need her to clarify. She only ever uses that particular tone of voice when discussing the Abominable Brother. 

"Depressing place. Single room. Grey walls. I told him he ought to move out, but he won't leave London. Can't afford anything better. His army pension's shit." 

"He could always get a flatmate," Sherlock says. 

Harry laughs into the throw pillow. It is a bitter, unhappy sound. "Who'd want him for a flatmate?" 

Sherlock stands up. He walks over to the coffee table, picks up Harry's phone. Plugs it in. The screen lights up and he looks at it. 

There are texts. Several of them. He scrolls through them. They are all from someone called John. The time stamps on the messages span nearly an hour.

There is a garbled string of letters from Harry that seems to have set off tonight's exchange. Sherlock squints at it. He suspects it to be an insult. Harry is quite good with insults. Unfortunately, her hand-eye coordination deteriorates with drink. 

Following Harry's unintelligible rant are ten messages: 

_Harry_

_Harry dammit_

_Please just let me know you're all right_

_Do you need me to come get you?_

_Harry_

_Please just answer me_

_I don't have to come if you don't want, I can send a taxi_

_Just let me know you're all right_

_I'm worried_

_Please_

The final _please_ moves something in Sherlock, though he cannot say quite why. It is foolish to attempt to ascribe tone of voice to a text message from someone he does not know. But that _please_ seems desperate. A little sad. 

He holds the phone in his hand for a long time before typing out a response. 

_Home now. Don't worry._

He sends it, puts the phone back down on the table. Thinks to himself that the Abominable Brother does not seem quite so abominable after all. 

He thinks of Mycroft, then, and quashes _that_ thought immediately. No need to get carried away.

*

"I'm not cooking you dinner," Harry tells him. 

He looks up from a study of decomposing tongues. Frowns. 

"I didn't expect you to." 

"Funny," she says, crosses her arms. 

She is struggling not to look too closely at the kitchen table. He can see her resolve wavering, can see the way she fights to keep her expression neutral. It is fascinating, he thinks, the lengths she will go to attempt to prove she is unaffected. 

"Funny how?" he demands. 

"Funny in that you've cleared out the entire fridge to make room for your—parts. And that includes the leftovers intended for tonight." 

He considers this for a moment. Yes, he supposes those _had_ been takeaway containers he'd swept into the bin earlier that day. 

"Oh," he says. His stomach chooses this poor moment to rumble hopefully. He looks down at the tray of diseased tongues. Sighs.

"Oh, God," Harry says, and this time she is unable to keep the disgust from her voice. 

*

He buys a small refrigerator, tucks it on the kitchen counter against the far wall. It is enough to fit milk, the occasional jar of jam, and a takeaway carton or two.

"There," he says, feeling strangely self-conscious when Harry notices it. He sniffs, schools his expression into one of bored indifference. "Now you've no reason to keep disturbing my experiments." 

"Wow," she says. "A whole minifridge, just for me. Not sure what I did to deserve this level of generosity." 

He thinks there might be something pleased buried under all of that sarcasm. 

*

Harry meets the Abominable Brother for lunch. She returns quiet, contemplative. 

Sherlock waits for the inevitable rant. He is surprised when nothing comes.

He does not ask how it went. Asking would imply that he cares. Which he quite obviously does not. 

*

He solves a murder based on a bit of dried green paint left at the scene of the crime. The killer is the victim's brother. He is not the least bit surprised.

*

Harry stops going out at night. Her face loses its tired puffiness, the dark circles under her eyes fade. 

The wine bottles she keeps under the kitchen sink disappear. So does the half-empty bottle of gin under the sofa he is not supposed to know about. 

More than once, he returns home to find her on the sofa, contemplating her left hand. Sometimes she strokes along the pale line on her ring finger with the index finger of her right hand. 

*

There is a third in a spate of mysterious suicides that has set all of London on edge. He follows the case in the papers, waits to be called. 

He _will_ be called, he knows. It's only a matter of time. There is no one at Scotland Yard capable of handling a case like this one. 

In the meantime, he amuses himself by interrupting the police press conference.

*

"We're going to try again," she tells him. "Clara and I." 

He glances up from the index finger he is carefully dissolving in acid. 

He has been expecting this. Harry has spent an increasing amount of time perusing her ex-wife's Facebook page. Her angry outbursts have diminished. She has ceased complaining about the Abominable Brother.

"I've agreed to a rehab program," she says. "I'm doing well on my own, but—" 

He sits back in his chair, looks at her. She does not need to finish her sentence. He knows quite well what comes after that _but._

"Anyhow. I miss her," Harry says. 

Sherlock does not know what it's like to miss someone in that way. He is glad for that, because the whole business seems inconvenient and messy. 

"This was always temporary," he tells her.

"Yeah," she says. "I know." 

*

Lestrade finally calls him in for help with the serial suicide case.

It feels like Christmas morning. The victim has scratched a cryptic message into wood flooring with her fingernails, the killer has made a mistake, and Sherlock is _on the hunt,_ his blood singing in his veins. 

He returns to his flat, triumphant, with the victim's pink suitcase in tow. There is a particular kind of high that comes with being exceptionally clever, and it has left him feeling incandescent. He wants to impress, he wants to be praised, he wants to show off. 

"I need you to send a text," he tells Harry.

"Send your own bloody text," she says. 

*

While initially promising, his lead goes nowhere. He returns home in poor spirits, finds his flat swarming with police. Mrs Hudson is flitting about and wringing her hands nervously, Harry is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and a sour look on her face. 

"What are you all doing here?" He looks to Mrs Hudson first, but she ducks her head and avoids his eye. 

"Oh, Sherlock," she says. 

"They're calling it a drugs bust," Harry says. 

He scowls, draws himself up to his full height. Narrows his eyes at Lestrade.

"I thought you were clean," Harry says.

"I am clean," he snaps. He draws up his sleeve. Nicotine patches climb the thin skin of his inner arm. 

"How does this work, exactly?" Sally asks, looking between them. "Is he blackmailing you?" 

"Yeah, what's he like to live with?" Lestrade asks. He's smiling a bit. Goading. He's been far too interested in this for far too long and now seems tickled at the prospect of a bit of gossip. 

"A bloody nightmare," Harry says. "You saw the eyeballs in the microwave." 

*

Later, he sits across a table from a murderer and calculates his odds of survival. 

The man is foolish in some ways, pathetic in others, but he is right about one thing—Sherlock is _bored._ The act of simply holding the pill—considering placing it on his tongue and swallowing it down, of playing the odds—sends an electric jolt down his spine that is hard to resist.

He is clean. He has not lied to anyone about that. He does not take drugs anymore. 

That does not mean he doesn't get high. 

He puts the pill between his teeth. 

There is a gunshot, a cascade of shattering glass, and the murderer sprawling on the dirty floor with a hole in his chest and his breath whistling through his teeth. 

Sherlock drops the pill, goes to the window. 

He can see no one.

A mystery. He _loves_ mysteries.

*

Harry's eyes are red-rimmed when he returns home. She sits in an angry ball on the couch, her arms folded over her knees. 

"That was stupid," she tells him. "I thought you were supposed to be smart." 

He looks at her, looks at his laptop. Jennifer Wilson's GPS program is still up on the screen. It has pinpointed Roland Kerr Further Educational College.

He stares for a moment. Looks back at Harry.

She averts her eyes. 

*

Sherlock passes a mildly entertaining afternoon at the morgue whipping a corpse in order to check for bruising patterns. 

When he returns to the flat, there is a man sitting in the comfortable chair by the fire. He startles at Sherlock's approach, makes to stand, stumbles. He grasps ineffectually at a metal cane propped against the armrest. 

"Oh," Sherlock says. He looks at the man, takes in the fading suntan, the short-cropped hair, the military posture. Harry's dirty-blond hair, Harry's dark blue eyes, Harry's upturned nose. "The Abominable Brother, I presume?"

The man barks out a laugh. It is a surprised sound, a little rusty around the edges. "And you must be the Mad Flatmate." 

Sherlock inclines his head, conceding. He studies the man before him. 

"Sherlock Holmes," he says, and offers his hand.

"John Watson," says the Abominable Brother. His grip is firm, strong. He has small hands. Surgeon's hands. There is a callus on his right index finger.

He is pleasing to look at. The thought is at once surprising and disconcerting.

"She was right," Sherlock says to distract himself. He gestures to the chair. "You do like that chair." 

John responds with a confused frown. He stands up a little straighter. Does not lean quite so heavily on his cane. "Are you—all right—then?" he asks, after a moment. 

"Hm?" Sherlock asks. 

"The other night. Heard you had a bit of—um. Excitement." 

Sherlock lifts his brows. "Oh?" 

John's cheeks have, inexplicably, flushed up red. He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, a nervous gesture. "Harry said. That—she said you had a bit of a close call." 

"Did she?" 

"Yeah. She was worried about you." 

Sherlock tears his gaze away. He looks around the room, takes note of the boxes piled near the door. 

"Ah," he says, realizing.

"Not sure how much help I'll be," John says. He seems grateful for the distraction. He taps his leg with the cane, grimaces. "But thought I'd offer." 

_Shot in the shoulder,_ Harry had told him. Well. That was interesting. 

"Do you really keep eyeballs in the microwave?" John asks, and then scrunches up his face in a fascinating display of horrified regret. "Sorry—sorry. Didn't actually mean to lead in with that. But—ah—do you really?" 

"Where else am I supposed to keep them?" 

John laughs at that, a genuine laugh that ramps up into giggling. It is a surprisingly pleasant sound, and suddenly Sherlock is laughing too. 

It feels good to laugh. He is not entirely used to it. 

Their laughter trails off slowly, leaving him warm and flushed and entirely uncertain what comes next. 

He is on the verge of asking _Would you like to see?_ when there is the sound of Harry's footsteps on the stairs. She appears in the doorway, holding another box. Her hair has worked loose of its messy ponytail. 

"Well," she says. "Don't all rush to help me at once." 

John rolls his eyes. It is a well-practiced display of good-natured irritation. He limps over to the stack of boxes, looks down at them. 

Sherlock sits down in his chair, watches them. 

When they have carried the last box down the stairs, Harry comes back up alone. She has taken her key off of its ring, and she holds it out to him. It gleams silver in her palm. 

"Well," she says. "Thanks. I guess." 

"Could have been worse," he agrees. He takes the key. 

"Try not to get yourself killed. And good luck with the—murders. And stuff." 

"Thank you," he says.

She goes down the stairs and out the door. He goes to the window, watches as she and the Abominable Brother—as she and _John_ climb into an idling taxi and pull away. 

The flat is very quiet. 

*

He stretches out on the couch in his empty sitting room and stares at the ceiling. 

It is nice, he tells himself. Peace and quiet. No distractions from his thoughts.

He has always preferred being alone. 

*

It is nearing seven the following evening when Sherlock is drawn out of his research on the effects of carbonated beverages on human teeth by a knock at the door. 

He waits for Mrs Hudson to answer it (no sense going downstairs if he doesn't need to) and he strains to listen to their muted conversation. Moments later, there are footsteps on the stairs—uneven, slow, punctuated by the tap of a cane. 

Harry Watson's Not-So-Abominable Brother. _John._

He stands up without meaning to, smooths his suit jacket. Frowns at himself. Starts to sit back down but is interrupted by John's appearance in the doorway. He freezes, caught between sitting and standing. 

"Oh," he says. He straightens up. "Hello." 

"Hi," John says. 

They stare at each other. Sherlock realizes belatedly that he should be saying—something. 

"Did Harry leave something behind?"

"Hm?" John seems startled by the question. "Oh. No. She—no."

"Ah," Sherlock says, as if that has cleared everything up.

"I just—" John says. He clears his throat, scratches at the back of his neck with one hand. His cane rests lightly against the floor. He is not leaning on it. "Um. Wanted to thank you." 

"Thank me?" Sherlock blinks, then blinks again. "Why?"

"For—" John pauses, looks at the wall. "Being there. For her." 

"I didn't do anything." 

"No," John says. "Just—she was in a bad place, when you met her. And there are—um. There are a million people out there who might have—taken advantage of that. You didn't. You gave her a place to live, and—" He stops, looks down at the ground. 

"No need," Sherlock says. He does not quite know why he is being thanked. He is quite certain that, on balance, he'd made for a terrible flatmate. "She paid her share of the rent."

"Yeah, well," John says. "You were there for her. I wasn't. So. Thank you." 

Sherlock shrugs, uncomfortable.

There is silence between them. Any moment now, John will be leaving, his task complete. 

John does not leave.

"You're not what I expected," John says, finally.

"No," Sherlock agrees. "Neither are you." 

John smiles a little at that, keeps his eyes on the ground. "I thought the worst. Initially. Well. Can't blame me, really. What was I supposed to think, when my sister calls in the middle of the night to tell me she's moving in with some bloke she met while drunk in a holding cell at Scotland Yard?" 

"Well," Sherlock says. "When you put it like _that…_ " 

John smiles, lifts his eyes to meet Sherlock's gaze. There is something open and earnest in his face, and Sherlock finds himself wanting quite badly to know him. 

"Your limp is psychosomatic," he says. 

John takes a step back, brows knitting together in confusion. "I—what?" 

"You limp badly when you walk. But you seem to forget about it while standing—see? You're not even leaning on your cane." 

John laughs, and the sound is dry, unamused. "I—" 

"And there's the fact that I already know you were shot in the shoulder, not the leg. Though I suppose that's cheating." 

"She said you do that," John says. He's staring at Sherlock with an expression that seems caught halfway between amazement and outrage. 

"Do what?" 

"Know about people." 

"I don't know," he says. "I observe." 

Amazement seems to be winning out over the outrage. John shifts where he stands. His hand clenches around the handle of his cane, but he does not lean on it. 

"Brilliant. You know, I'd thought she was exaggerating. But—ha. No. That's brilliant." 

"Do you think so?" 

"Of course I do. It's extraordinary." 

"Hm," Sherlock says. He tucks his chin in, considers. His chest feels warm and tight. "That's not what people usually say." 

"No? What do they usually say?" 

He shrugs. The word choice varies, but the underlying meaning is always the same. "Piss off." 

John tips his head back and laughs again, and the sound is not mocking but genuine, genuine and unexpected and altogether wonderful. 

Harry had laughed, too.

Who _are_ these people? 

Sherlock wants to know everything about John. He thinks he could study him for hours, for days, for _weeks_ and not have his fill. He has never felt this way about another human being before.

"I—um," John's laughter trails off. He clears his throat. "I didn't mean to interrupt, or to take up too much of your time. Harry said you were always busy with your—um—experiments. I just—well. I didn't have a chance to say it yesterday, and I wanted to thank you in person. So." 

"Oh," Sherlock says. He meets John's eyes, looks away. He does not know what to say.

"Well. Take care, yeah?" John says. He smiles, gives a sharp little nod. Turns away. 

He limps towards the stairs. Leans heavily on his cane. 

He leaves silence behind him, thick and choking.

Sherlock watches the strong line of his back, the firm grip of his hand on the cane. Looks at the fading tan on his wrists, the back of his neck. 

"John," Sherlock says.

John turns back, lifts his brows. "Hm?"

"You're an army doctor." 

John clears his throat, shifts where he stands. "Yes."

It is fascinating, Sherlock thinks, the way he unconsciously assumes parade rest. 

"Seen a lot of injury," he says. "Violent deaths?" 

"Of course," John says. He looks down. His voice is insincere. "Enough for a lifetime. Far too much." 

Sherlock studies him. Thinks about the callus on his index finger. Thinks about what Lestrade had told him about the mysterious gunshot that had (possibly) (probably) saved his life. Thinks about that cascade of broken glass, the empty room on the other side. 

Thinks about that GPS on his laptop, blinking and blinking and blinking, a silent beacon. Thinks about Harry's furious face and closed-off posture when he'd returned home. 

It comes to him, as it often does, in a flood of white-hot realization. He breathes out, rests his fingertips against his mouth. 

John watches him. He does not shift his balance, does not lean on his cane. It is forgotten in his hands. 

"Good shot," Sherlock says, quietly. 

John's shoulders stiffen. His face and voice remain mild. "Hm?" 

"Better than good," he amends. "A handgun, at that range, through two panes of glass? That'd take a crack shot." 

John says nothing. He purses his lips. 

"She called you," Sherlock says, finally. This is accompanied by a bewildered sense of wonder.

"Yes, well," John clears his throat, looks away. "Like I said. She was worried." 

Sherlock opens his mouth to respond and realizes he has no idea what to say. The idea that Harry Watson had been worried about him is absurd. Why would she be worried? He'd been nothing to her. Just a flatmate. Temporary. Transient. Other than the inconvenience of sorting out new living arrangements, why would she care whether he lived or died? Why, of all things, would she be moved to ask her Abominable Brother for a favour on his account? 

"Well," Sherlock says, after far too much time has gone by. His voice emerges hesitant, uncertain. "Good shot."

He is repeating himself. He loathes repetition. 

John smiles tightly. He nods. Looks up at the ceiling. 

"Um," John says, after a pause. He is wincing, now, as if it pains him to speak. "If you could—if you could possibly not mention—" 

"I find myself in need of a flatmate," Sherlock cuts in. It is not what he had intended to say. Yet once the words are out, he finds he has no interest in calling them back. 

John shakes his head, frowns. The pained expression is gone from his face, replaced by a cautious interest. He enjoys being surprised. "What?" 

"My flatmate has recently decided to make some much-needed positive changes in her life. Good for her, not so good for me. She's moved out. Left me high and dry with the rent." He offers a tentative smile, his heart thudding in his chest. "Know anyone who might be interested?" 

John opens his mouth, shuts it again. He squares his shoulders. 

"Well," he says. A smile seems to be trying to pull up at the corners of his mouth. "I might. Except—no offense, mate, but you seem like you might be a bit of a nightmare to live with." 

Sherlock shrugs. "I play the violin while I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't speak for days." 

"Yeah," John says. He is still smiling. His voice is mild, almost teasing. "And you keep human remains in the fridge and throw out all of the, you know, actual food."

"There's a separate refrigerator!" He stabs his index finger in the direction of the minifridge. 

John follows his gaze. His eyes sweep over the scattered teeth on the kitchen table. He raises his brows. 

"That's a very delicate experiment." 

"On the kitchen table." 

"All right, yes, and you carry an illegal firearm," Sherlock says. He raises his own brows, a clear challenge. "I think that's enough to be going on with, don't you?" 

John stares at him.

The silence between them stretches to a breaking point.

John laughs. It is a shocked, snorting giggle, and he lifts his hand, presses it against his mouth. 

"What?" Sherlock asks. He doesn't understand. He doesn't like not understanding. 

"Just—" John giggles again, shakes his head. "Saying yes to this—ha—this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever done." 

The giggling is infectious. Sherlock finds himself smiling. "And you invaded Afghanistan." 

"Wasn't just me," John says. 

Sherlock snorts with laughter. He has laughed more in his two encounters with John Watson than he has in years. 

"So you'll take the room," he says. He claps his hands together, tries to reel himself in. 

He does not know why it is so absolutely, vitally important that John stay. Only that it is. 

"Yeah," John says. "Sure. Why not?"


	23. Words You Don't Mean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bittersweet exchange between John and Sherlock from an unfinished fic of mine. The fic wasn't working out, but I liked this bit of dialogue, so I cleaned it up enough to (hopefully) stand on its own. 
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/171061488411/words-you-dont-mean)

*

"Did I ever tell you?" John asked. He laughed, looked down at his hands. "About what it was like after your—well. After your miraculous return from the dead?" 

John did not know why he had started talking. It was something about Sherlock's face, he thought. There had been something sad and fleeting in his expression. It had been gone so quickly he could not be sure if it had only been a trick of the light. 

Sherlock glanced at him, his brow furrowed. "My miraculous and poorly timed return, you mean." 

John shrugged. "I wouldn't say poorly timed. Poorly executed, perhaps." 

Sherlock's lip twitched. He made an amused sound. His face was sharp and deeply shadowed under the streetlamps. 

"I barely slept that night, you know." 

"Mm," Sherlock said. He looked away, his lips pursed thoughtfully. "Neither did I." 

"I was angry." 

"I know." 

"I was also absurdly happy." 

Sherlock blinked. Shook his head. Blinked again. He looked at John for a moment, then away. 

Something lurched sickly in John's stomach at the expression on his face. 

"I was under the impression that you didn't wish to continue our association," Sherlock said. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He pressed his hands together, rested them against his mouth. He did not look back at John. 

"Yes, well, you caught the angry part. Not the happy part." 

"Ah." 

"I wanted you not to be dead." 

"So you've said," Sherlock agreed mildly. He went on staring off into the distance.

"So that next day. The whole day. I was—" John laughed, a little self-consciously, scratched at the back of his neck. "I was waiting for you to show up." 

Sherlock was silent. 

"The way you always used to do when something came up. Just—barging in, making a scene. Dragging me off somewhere." 

"You—" Sherlock's voice was uncertain. "You'd made it quite clear that—" 

"I know what I said," John said. "But I also—well. I guess I wasn't expecting you to actually listen."

"You wanted me to show up," Sherlock said. Flat, disbelieving. 

"I expected you to." 

"But—" 

"Sherlock," John said. 

Sherlock stopped speaking. Turned to look at John, his face expectant. Patient. 

John shifted where he stood, looked down at his hands. "I am, apparently, utter shit at letting you know what you—how important you—" 

He stopped, pressed his knuckles against his mouth. Even now, he couldn't seem to say it. Even now, he couldn't do it properly. 

_I thought I was in love with you, once,_ he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. _Maybe I was. Maybe I still am. And I would have followed you anywhere._

"You're always right," he said, instead. 

Sherlock looked over at him, surprised. 

John shook his head, held up a hand. "Just hear me out. You're not right about everything, Christ, sometimes you're the biggest idiot I know. But when it comes to me, Sherlock, when it's me—you are. Always. Always right." 

"What are you—" 

"You reach out," he said. "To me. Over and over and _over_ again. You never let me alone. Even when I beg you to." 

"You hate it when I do that." 

"No," John said, and his voice emerged thick, choked. "I really, really don't." 

Sherlock's face had shifted back into that careful blankness, that devastatingly still expression that John had come to learn meant he was _terrified._

I know that this is—this is a shit thing to lay at your feet, Sherlock. It's stupid. If I want—" he paused. Pushed on. "If I want something from you, I should just say it. But I can't. Do you understand? I _can't._ And left to my own devices, I keep on making the wrong choices. Over and over again." 

"I can't tell you what to do," Sherlock said slowly. He had drawn back into himself. He looked tense, coiled, ready to flee.

"That's not what I—" John shook his head. "I don't want you to tell me what to do. I just want—just—don't fade away, Sherlock. Don't politely excuse yourself from my life. Because I'm afraid that I'll let you." 

Sherlock stared. 

"I don't want that," John said, and his voice had gone so quiet he could barely hear himself. "I've tried that, and it's not—it's not good. For me." 

Sherlock nodded, and then stilled. He pressed his lips down into a hard line. Tucked his chin. He seemed at war with himself. 

After a moment, he lifted his head, looked steadily at John. "Stop telling me to leave." 

John's breath caught. Their eyes held. 

"John, I realize that my—vows are worthless to you," Sherlock said. "But please believe me when I tell you that I will always want—I will always want you by my side." 

John rubbed at the bridge of his nose. His face had gone hot again, the blood roaring in his ears. 

"But I can't—I don't know what to do. You're the one who helps with—" Sherlock stopped, frustrated. He waved an impatient hand in the air. "You're the one who does all of this. Feelings. Whatever. And there are times when it's quite obvious that you're saying something you don't mean, like when you suggest salads for lunch but you really want Chinese, you only _think_ you want a salad because you've stopped cycling to work and you're worried—correctly—about putting on weight, but—" 

"Sherlock," John said, helpless. He did not know whether to start laughing or shouting. His throat felt tight.

"—But," Sherlock pressed on. "There are other times—times when you say things like _stay the hell away from me,_ or _I'd rather have anyone but you,_ and I can't tell—John, I have no idea how to tell if you actually mean that. If it would be better for you, if I stayed away." 

"No," John said. "It wouldn't." 

"I can't know that. I can't _know_ that, John, don't you understand how—" Sherlock turned away, his shoulders rising and falling with his rapid breaths. 

John looked at him and thought, oddly, of Sherlock's face when he'd asked him to be his best man. That blank, shocked expression. The endless blinking. The confusion. He'd been stopped cold by the words _best friend_. 

And no wonder, really. He'd been surprised, even now, to discover that John had been _happy_ about his return from the dead. All of this time, had he truly been living with the perception that John had forgiven him not for the deception, not for the dying, but for surviving? As if turning up alive had been anything less than a miracle. As if turning up alive was something he'd need to atone for. 

"Christ," John said. He moved closer, bumped up against Sherlock's shoulder. The night air was chilly against his face. He hesitated for a moment, and then reached out his hand, twined his fingers through Sherlock's.

Sherlock froze, rigid as a statue, unyielding. And then, slowly, cautiously, he thawed. His fingers slackened, then tightened. A firm squeeze. 

"Just—don't leave," John said, staring straight ahead. He could not bring himself to turn, could not bring himself to look Sherlock in the eye. 

"Don't ask me to." 

"I won't," John lied, and closed his eyes.


	24. Vows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene set during HLV. Originally posted [here.](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/171248139346/vows)
> 
> This is a reworked piece of a never-to-be-finished fic that I'd begun writing between S3 and TAB. Another ficlet, [Flight,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11725977/chapters/27033336) was also drawn from that same story.

*

From down the hall, a door squealed open. Footsteps. 

Off schedule. Interesting.

He listened, realized from the first measured step that it was not one of the guards. Mycroft, then. Dull. 

He did not lift his head, continued staring up at the ceiling as his brother approached the entrance to his cell. The door buzzed to admit him. 

Silence stretched for a long moment. He was aware of the sound of his brother breathing. He wondered what he would get—censure or pity.

"Oh, Sherlock," Mycroft said quietly. 

Pity, then. He shut his eyes. 

There was another stretch of silence. There was no place in the room for Mycroft to sit. He wondered how long his brother's patience would last; if he could wait him out, if he'd eventually hear those footsteps recede without another word being spoken. 

"You've put us in a difficult position," Mycroft said finally. His voice had hardened slightly. 

"My most sincere apologies," he said. 

Mycroft sighed. "They tell me you haven't been eating." 

"Please, be my guest." Sherlock gestured towards the tray in the corner without opening his eyes, without stirring from his place on the cot. "I'm sure the smell is proving an irresistible temptation." 

"A poor effort, even for you," Mycroft sniffed. 

Sherlock sighed, sat up, scrubbed his hands through his hair. It felt heavy, limp against his scalp. His chin bristled with stubble. He had been permitted basic hygiene but had not been allowed to shower, had not been allowed to shave. 

"You have news," he said. 

"Obviously." 

"Best get on with it. I'm quite busy, as you can see." 

"Clearly," Mycroft favored him with a sour expression. 

"Well?"

"You're being granted the opportunity to reconsider the assignment you turned down." 

"Ah." 

"The terms are still the same, regretfully. As is the… time frame." 

"And the alternative?" 

Mycroft gestured to the bland white room. "Similar accommodations. Indefinitely. They'd never be able to house you with the general population, Sherlock, you know that." 

"Right," Sherlock said, standing up. "When do I leave?" 

Mycroft was frowning. "Four hours." 

"Best not waste time, then." 

"You're to be released into my custody in the interim. Afforded every courtesy typically granted to an agent with MI6. With certain caveats, of course. They will not allow you to flee, Sherlock." 

"I would expect not." He moved to the locked door, turned back to face his brother. 

"Sherlock," Mycroft said, and hesitated. He seemed to steel himself. "Are you all right?" 

"Never better," Sherlock said, flashing a brief, false smile.

"You have killed a man. Do you find yourself—affected?" 

"What?" Sherlock blinked. "No. No—there was—no. There was no other choice." 

Mycroft's expression slipped a bit. "And Mary Watson. Was she worth—all of this?" 

There was a burning discomfort in his chest that he'd grown used to, had grown adept at ignoring. He narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Magnussen was never going to stop." 

"I'd wondered," Mycroft said quietly. "Why you thought dealing with him directly was preferable to—to coming to me. And then I thought about why you might not have done so." He tapped his chest lightly, gave Sherlock a knowing look. "She's the one responsible for your recent convalescence, isn't she?" 

"Regrettably." 

"You didn't know what she was." 

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "And you did?" 

"Of course I knew." Anger had crept into Mycroft's voice. "It was plain as day, Sherlock. I assumed you'd seen it as well."

_I didn't,_ Sherlock thought petulantly. Then he reconsidered. He _had_ seen it. The signs were all there. He'd chosen to ignore them. 

"An error in judgment," he said. 

"How very human of you," Mycroft sighed, pronouncing the word _human_ as if it were something profoundly distasteful. 

"Tick tock, Mycroft," Sherlock gestured to the door again. 

"Except—" Mycroft spoke slowly, letting his words trail off as if a thought were just occurring to him. It was an old technique, and a boring one, designed to catch someone off guard. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes?" 

"I assume, by now, that Dr Watson is aware that it was his wife who put you in hospital?"

Sherlock frowned. 

"And yet he's seen fit to—forgive?" 

He opened his mouth, shut it again. Went on frowning. 

"I can't imagine he came to that conclusion on his own." Mycroft fixed him with a probing, questioning stare.

"I—" Sherlock said. 

He thought of Mary, all of the reasons he'd given, all of the reasons she'd supported. They were true. They made sense. In a way, there was a certain kinship. He, too, would shoot, would kill, for John Watson. 

"Because it seems to me," Mycroft continued. "That you could have avoided this entire mess by allowing things to run their natural course. Surely you must know the statistics on divorce in this country." 

This was surely worse than any punishment they could have dreamed up. Trapping him in a locked room with Mycroft when he was feeling _chatty_. Sherlock yanked on the door handle again. 

"You could have had exactly what you wanted," Mycroft continued, and his voice had pitched up high, knowing, _smug—_ "John Watson, back at Baker Street." 

"I made a vow," Sherlock hissed, abandoning his efforts at the door and whirling around to face his brother. He was surprised at his own vehemence, at the depth of the anger that came bubbling up. 

He had stood up in front of a room full of people and had pledged to protect John and Mary and the baby. Whatever it took. Whatever the cost. He had vowed it, and he had _meant_ it, and he was determined to stick with it regardless of—

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. A genuine expression. He'd managed to surprise him. 

"Vows are made to be broken, Sherlock." 

"Then what, exactly, is the point of making them?" 

"Precisely." 

"Are we leaving?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Yes," Mycroft said. "I suppose we are." 

He gestured at the camera in the corner of the room, and the door buzzed.


	25. Spoken in Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/172326415261/spoken-in-silence)

*

"She was too young for you." 

John jerked in surprise, looking up sharply to meet Sherlock's eye. There was no way that Sherlock could have possibly known that he was thinking about the barista from that morning, and yet—

"Don't know what you're talking about," John said. 

Sherlock did not respond.

John shifted in his chair. Sherlock's face was difficult to read. 

The barista had been pretty—smiling and vivacious and, yes, all right, likely too young for him. But he'd met her eye and had smiled back and she'd looked right through him. Right through. 

It had been a blow to the ego, he supposed. But a mild one. The flirting had been little more than a reflex. He wasn't interested in—he hadn't thought seriously about—not since Mary, not since everything that had happened. 

No. It had not been her lack of interest that troubled him. 

The barista had looked right through him, and he'd felt old, and foolish, and then he'd thought of Eurus. He'd thought of her smiling face and her bright eyes and the way she'd leaned towards him on that bus, the way she'd hung on his every word. 

He'd never questioned it. Not once. He'd never wondered why someone so young, so pretty, so lively, so _interesting_ would ever spare him a second glance. He'd just accepted it as fact. He'd allowed a monster into his life, had held the door wide open, and he'd never even questioned it. 

John sighed, looked at Sherlock.

"You're right, of course." 

"Mm," Sherlock agreed. "I always am." 

"Well, no. Not always." 

Sherlock see-sawed his hand in the air. "Usually." 

"All right," John said. He shrugged, looked up at the ceiling. "You're right, of course. Not like I have much to offer, yeah? Not anymore. Who would ever want—" he trailed off. He did not want to wallow. 

Sherlock looked at him. His eyes were very pale in the firelight, nearly colourless. He was quiet for a very long time. His silence had weight. 

The implication of that silence settled uneasily in the air around John, prickling, sparking. 

"You're kidding," John said.

"Does it really surprise you?" Sherlock's voice was soft. It was strange, coming from him. That care. And somehow, at the same time, not strange at all.

John opened his mouth to issue the kind of brush off that should have come naturally. No response came. 

Sherlock watched him carefully, waited. 

"Yes," John said. Then he shook his head, dismayed at the instinctive lie, dismayed that it had _been_ a lie at all. Because he'd known, hadn't he? On some level, he'd always known. "No." 

Sherlock swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbed. His face was all sharp angles and shadows in the firelight.

"What am I supposed to—?" John tore his gaze away, looked at the fire. "What am I supposed to say to that?"

Sherlock shrugged, leaned back in his chair. His face was impassive. "Whatever you'd like." 

John looked at him. 

Sherlock stared steadily back at him for a moment, then turned his attention back towards the fire. 

John thought about Mary, gasping her last breath in his arms. Thought about Rosie, asleep upstairs in the cramped little room they shared. Thought about the things he'd always wanted to say, the words he'd choked back again and again because there had never been a right time. The chances he'd missed. The hurts he'd caused.

It had always been easier to pretend that Sherlock did not feel things that way. 

It was between them now, heavy and electric in the air. 

There was nothing stopping him. He could stand up, he could step forward and drop to his knees in front of Sherlock's chair and take his firelight-kissed face in his hands. He could bring their lips together and pull Sherlock's breath into his own lungs. He could do that, and Sherlock would let him. 

_Whatever you'd like,_ Sherlock had said. 

There were so many things he'd like to say. So many things he'd like to do. 

All he had to do was stand up. Step forward. 

John shut his eyes. "Why me?" 

He was not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer. 

He thought again of Eurus, her falsely shy smile and downcast eyes, her flirty words, the way he'd simply _accepted_ that she'd been drawn to him. He thought of Mary, and the way he'd loved her and then hated her all at once, the way he'd taken his own freely offered forgiveness and twisted it into an ugly nest of resentment and anger. The way he'd never gotten the chance to make it right again. 

"Why me?" he asked again. 

Sherlock was silent for a long time. He looked at the fire. 

"Because I love you," he said finally. "I'm given to understand that these things are not always rational." 

John breathed out hard. His eyes had begun to sting. The plain, uncomplicated warmth of those words settled over him, banishing the uncomfortable tension in the air. 

Sherlock turned away from the fire, looked at John. His expression was heartbreakingly bewildered, vulnerable. His eyes were very wide.

John nodded. He smoothed his hand over the armrest of his chair, patted it once. His hand was steady.

He stood up. He stepped forward.


	26. Guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by Pagimag on Tumblr: _For 221b-concolation fic prompts: I don’t have anything elaborate at all but would love to read your take on Molly having a bad day in TFP. Why was it a bad day? Did it get worse after Sherlock’s call? (Did she in fact help Mary fake her death and was having second thoughts about her own involvement? If so, why would she agree to help her in the first place, except from having the experience of helping Sherlock? What were Molly’s & Mary’s motivations? Was Vivian Norbury in on it? How/Why?)_
> 
> This was written as part of [221B-Consolation Fest](https://221b-consolation.tumblr.com/), and was originally posted [here](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/172890696706/guilt).

*

Molly's phone hummed against the countertop. Sherlock's name on the screen. 

She did not want to speak to Sherlock. She did not want to think about Sherlock. She did not want to _look_ at Sherlock, because when she did she still saw his gaunt stubbled face and his bloodied sclera and the gruesome stitches over his left eye.

It did not matter that time had passed, that Sherlock had recovered. That, by all accounts, everything was _fine._

He had not been fine. He had been addled and rambling and ranting, as close to death as she'd ever seen him, haunted and ruined and broken. And now she could barely bring herself to look at him. Could barely bring herself to look at John. 

She'd stood at John's door and barred Sherlock from entering, had held little Rosie close and had watched the fragile hope crack apart on Sherlock's face. She'd said terrible things to Sherlock because John was hurting, they both were hurting, and had she been a different person, a _better_ person she might have saved them both and yet—

 _I hear you're good at keeping secrets._

It had happened the day John and Mary brought their little baby girl home.

Molly had gone to their house, had stood and cooed over the baby with Mrs Hudson. John had been full of nervous energy, the stereotypical new father and yet there was something slightly off, there always had been, in the way he interacted with Mary. Affection, yes, but tainted with some deeply buried anger that seemed to come out at odd moments. 

At some point Mrs Hudson had gone off to fuss with something in the kitchen, and John and Sherlock had disappeared somewhere, and Molly had found herself left alone with Mary. And Mary had looked at her, and her face had been happy, and tired, and she'd shifted the sleeping baby in her arms and had said _I hear you're good at keeping secrets._

Molly had let out a nervous bark of laughter, had cast frantically about for some new topic of conversation. She did not like to think about how good she was at keeping secrets. She had kept Sherlock's secret for two long years, and it had nearly killed him. It had nearly killed John. 

_I was wondering,_ Mary said, and the happiness had bled all out of her face, leaving her looking tired and sad and haunted. _If you'd keep one of mine._

She could have stood up, she supposed. She could have made her excuses and left. She had not. Instead she'd shifted in her seat and listened. 

_You know what I am,_ Mary had said. _You know what I've done._

And no one had ever told her, not the details, but Molly was very good at seeing things that no one wanted her to see. So yes, she had known. 

_I want this,_ Mary had said, and she'd still looked so very sad. But hard, too, like she was steeling herself for something that was going to hurt and determined to make it through to the other side. _I want this, so badly, but I might not be able to keep it. There might come a time where I need to—to go. To disappear. Forever. Do you understand?_

Molly had understood. It was the kind of thing that went hand in hand with stolen corpses and falsified records and unnecessary grief. It was the kind of thing she'd never wanted to do again. 

_Will you help me? If the time comes?_

The time had come. Sooner than she'd expected. 

She'd helped. 

It had been easier when Sherlock had flung himself from the roof. There had been a rush of urgent work, a sense of elated relief when it all went to plan. She'd helped him, and she'd spoken to him, and she'd spoken to Mycroft. Both had been quietly efficient, detached. Already thinking twelve steps ahead. She had not had to deal all that much with John, with all of that raw terrible grief. She'd barely known him, then. He'd had other outlets for his pain. 

But this time—

This time she came face-to-face with the crushing weight of John's grief, his anger, his guilt and sorrow. She held little Rosie and tried not to think about the part she'd played in taking her mother away. She'd watched John collapse in on himself as that secret buried anger bubbled out of his very pores, watched Sherlock wage war on his own beloved mind and begin to fray apart. 

It did not make it better that Mary was not dead. She was dead to John and Sherlock and Rosie, and she would remain dead to them forever. There would be no happy reunion, no relief, no catharsis. 

And it did not make it better that everything was now back to some semblance of normal. That Sherlock was clean again, that he'd dragged himself up from rock bottom and had recovered without any serious long-term damage. That John seemed capable of smiling again, was able to care for himself and his daughter. That the two of them had stitched up yet another terrible gaping wound between them. 

It did not make it better. She didn't know what would. She'd started to fear that nothing ever could. 

It was easier, keeping Sherlock at bay. She feared he might figure her out, one day. That he might look at her and know what she'd done. 

He hadn't seen through her yet. He saw everything, but he was blind to the people he trusted. He trusted her. Somehow that was worse. 

The phone buzzed again. Insistent. He had always been difficult to ignore.

This time she answered.


	27. The One to Leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [221B-Consolation Fest](https://221b-consolation.tumblr.com/), and originally posted to Tumblr in two parts: [Part 1](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/172906243325/the-one-to-leave-1-of-2) and [Part 2](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/172928462835/the-one-to-leave-2-of-2).

*

There was a knock on the door.

Sherlock looked up from the book he was reading. He was not expecting anyone, but that did not, necessarily, preclude a visit. His neighbors often dropped by with small requests, minor mysteries, just enough to keep him from stagnating. 

He stood and stretched, creaking, aching. The dog slumped by the fire lifted its ponderous head, gave a low growl. 

The knock had been curious. Tentative. It was not the knock of the local constable, nor anyone who frequented his little cottage. It was the knock of someone unfamiliar with the territory, unsure of their reception. 

He opened the door. 

Blinked. 

John stood on the little stone step, his hands fisted at his sides, his grey hair windblown and disheveled. It was a cold, damp day, and the rain lashed against the treetops. 

"John," Sherlock said, because he could think of nothing else. 

"Hi," John said, and his voice emerged strangely choked. He shifted from one foot to the other. "I know this is—I haven't—can I come inside? It's bloody freezing out here." 

Sherlock stepped to the side and let John pass. John smelled of damp wool. It was a familiar smell, achingly familiar, and his chest tightened. 

The dog stood up, all long legs and thick fur, and growled again. 

John froze, halfway to removing his coat. 

"Henry," Sherlock soothed, his voice low. 

The dog looked at him, then back at John. It sat down, its back to the flickering fire, its eyes keen. 

"Henry," John said. He looked at the dog. There was a ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth. 

"Seemed appropriate," Sherlock said. "Giant hound and—" he shrugged, waved his hand. "All that." 

"You have a dog." 

"Clearly." 

"So this is—" John stopped, made a point of looking around. He nodded. "Your place, yeah? It's—" his gaze caught on the chair by the fire. One chair. Sherlock's chair. His voice trailed off. 

"I'm sure there are a great many adjectives that might apply," Sherlock said, drawing himself up to his full height, walking past John to stand near the fireplace. "But let's skip the formalities, shall we?" 

John opened and shut his mouth without making a sound. His hand clenched, relaxed, clenched again. He looked as though he regretted removing his coat. 

Henry growled again. 

"It's all right," Sherlock told him, patting the great shaggy head. He looked back at John, frowned. There was too much data there. Too much. Not enough.

He'd lost weight. He'd aged. These things did tend to happen. 

"You look good," John said, and then looked up at the ceiling. "Well. You look well." 

"I find the climate agreeable," Sherlock said. 

John looked at the window, at the moisture pooling up against the glass, at the tall grass whipping in the wet wind. 

The corner of Sherlock's mouth tried to lift in a smile and he forced it down. He cleared his throat, patted Henry again. "Best get on with it," he said. "Nearly fifteen years of silence. Must be some reason you've decided to show up now." 

"I—" John said. 

"Quickly, please," Sherlock said, feeling a sudden hot rush of anger. "I don't have all day." 

Sensing his unease, Henry growled again. 

John closed his eyes.

"It's Rosie. She's got a—not sure if it's a _case,_ really, but she's got a friend. At university. Seems to have gotten himself into a bit of trouble. She's pretty sure he's being blackmailed and—" John frowned, cast a wary look at the dog. "She begged me to ask you. So." He spread his hands out, tried for a smile. It looked shriveled and disingenuous. 

"She could have asked me herself," Sherlock said. He and Rosie emailed with some regularity. She'd mentioned nothing of the sort. 

"Fine," John said, deflating slightly. "She asked me not to bother you." 

"Yet here you are."

"She's stubborn," John said. "She's a lot like Mary." 

Sherlock looked at him, took in the stiff line of his shoulders, the mulish line of his jaw. "Yes," he said, lifting his brows. "A lot like Mary." 

John brought one hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, worn out, defeated in a way that Sherlock had rarely seen him.

"I'm afraid she's in over her head," he said. "She didn't want to tell you because she thinks she can solve it herself. She thinks she can help, she—Christ, she fancies herself some kind of investigator, and—" 

"She likely can solve it herself," Sherlock said. "She's very bright." 

"I know she's bright," John snapped. "But she's my sodding _daughter_ and she's—" his voice broke open, raw and cracked. "She's all I've got." 

Sherlock stared at him, and thought of the last time they'd seen each other, John standing awkwardly in the sitting room at Baker Street with Rosie clinging to his leg. John not meeting his eye as he said _I've asked Rachel to marry me._

Sherlock had not even known that was her name. 

John had dated sporadically as Rosie had grown. It had not surprised Sherlock. John craved companionship. He craved companionship that was—different—from the kind of companionship that Sherlock himself was able to provide. Regardless of how much he'd wanted—

He'd not considered the fact that John would be looking for more than casual romance. He'd failed to follow his thoughts to the proper conclusion and had thus been caught entirely off guard. An unforgivable oversight. 

"I'll not be your best man again," he'd said, and John's mouth had snapped shut with a surprised click.

He did not remember their parting words. But John had helped Rosie into her winter coat and they'd gone down the stairs together. Sherlock had stood at the window and watched them disappear into a cab. 

He'd stood there for a long time, just thinking. 

And then he'd started packing.

He'd imagined John coming back to speak with him, finding Baker Street vacant. No forwarding address. Only a single red chair, abandoned by the fireplace. The vicious thrill that thought provided had sustained him through the first of many lonely, quiet nights in his crumbling seaside cottage. 

It had sustained him for the nearly fifteen years that had followed. 

"Did you know? That she would—that it would end like that?" John asked. There was an edge to his voice, a barely concealed accusation. 

He meant Rachel, of course. Their marriage had not even lasted a year. Sherlock could barely remember her. She'd been nothing like Mary. 

Sherlock simply looked at him, did not respond. 

"You just left," John said. There was no accusation in his voice, just a sort of breathless disbelief. "You just—" 

He'd left, yes. He'd packed up and left London behind. 

He'd left and John had not followed. John had not called. John had not written. John had vanished from his life like a ghost. 

_She's all I've got,_ John had said about his daughter. 

_She didn't have to be,_ Sherlock thought. He pressed his lips together. 

"You could have emailed me the details," Sherlock said. "You didn't have to come all this way. You have to know that I—" he faltered, cleared his throat, pressed on, "—that I would do anything for Rosie." 

"Yeah," John said, and his voice had softened. "I know. I—I guess I just wanted—" 

Sherlock waited.

"I miss you," John said, the words emerging breathless and rushed, as if all of the air had been punched out of him. His face crumpled and he looked away, swiping at his eyes with one trembling hand. "Christ. I just—I just—" 

There was a pull in Sherlock's chest. A long-buried, stifled urge to step forward, to fold John into his arms. To hold him close, to cradle him against his chest, to press his face into his hair and breathe him in. He had never wanted to be apart from John. 

He swallowed hard, stood still. Thought about fifteen years between them, fifteen years without a word. Thought of the bitter angry pleasure that had burned the back of his throat as he'd left Baker Street for the last time, John's chair alone and forlorn against a backdrop of empty shelves. 

Thought of the emails from Rosie, the steady constant communication that had started only a few weeks later, that had held fast over the years. Clumsy child's language at first, evolving, refining as she grew. 

He wondered for the first time whether those first few halting emails had been her idea at all.

Perhaps it had been John. John, seeking to keep one small link between them, one thread left unsnapped. John, urging his young daughter to write, to keep in touch with her absent, eccentric godfather. 

That was—that was more likely, was it not? More likely than Rosie, at four years old, deciding on her own to reach out?

The thought that he had been willing to let his bitter words: _I'll not be your best man again_ be the final things he ever said to John Watson, after everything—all because he'd been surprised and that surprise had rendered him unable to defend against the unwanted surge of his emotions—

"I cocked it all up," John said. His voice was tired. "I didn't see—I was lonely, Sherlock. I thought Rosie needed a mother. I thought I was doing right by her, and then I—I was so angry with you for leaving. And when things fell apart with Rachel I—I was angry with you for not pointing out all of the ways we were incompatible. I thought it was all your fault, I always make these things your fault when they're not, and I—" he shook his head, grimaced, looked away, "—I didn't bother. I didn't try to—I should have—" 

"John," Sherlock said, because he could not bear this, John Watson quietly shaking apart in the cottage he was never meant to see. 

"The chair," John said. "My chair. You left it for me to find, yeah? It was the only thing you left behind. It was a—um. It was a pretty clear message." 

Sherlock looked down at the ground. He had intended the message to be clear. He had been pleased by the savage simplicity of it. 

His own chair now seemed that much more conspicuous, alone by the fire. 

"I couldn't watch you get married again," Sherlock said, finally. The words hung between them in the quiet room.

John looked at him. His eyes were damp. "Because of Mary?" 

"No." 

"Because there was something about Rachel you didn't like?" 

"There was nothing to like or dislike about Rachel," Sherlock said. That was not entirely true, he supposed, but it was close enough. "I barely even noticed her." 

"Then why?" 

"You know why."

John shook his head. "No, I—" he stopped, pursed his lips. Something changed in his expression. 

"Excellent," Sherlock said, summoning his last bit of strength. "You've caught on. Case closed, mystery solved. Try not to let the door hit you on your way out." 

"Sherlock," John said. He took a step forward.

Henry growled, low in the back of his throat. Sherlock reached out, stroked a soothing hand along his back. He quieted. 

"I didn't know," John said. His voice cracked. 

"Well," Sherlock said, clapping his hands together, trying his best to sound dismissive. "Now you do." 

"I kept the chair." 

Sherlock blinked. 

"Had it in my flat for the last fifteen years," John shrugged, looking around, looking anywhere but at Sherlock. There was a small, self-deprecating smile working at the edges of his mouth. "Doesn't really go with the décor, but—" 

"Oh," Sherlock said. His voice emerged very quiet, very soft. 

"I'm glad for it," John said. "It feels like home. It's the only thing that does, really. Now. With Rosie gone."

"She's off at university, hardly _gone._ "

"You know what I mean," John said. 

Sherlock swallowed. He very carefully did not think of the years in which John was very much a constant presence in his life, but living elsewhere. When he was _gone._

He'd missed John. 

It was not the sort of thing he wanted to admit to himself. It felt a great deal like weakness. He'd spent years holding on to that spike of anger he'd felt, that righteous indignation at being abandoned, at being left behind again. He'd been in a tremendous rush to be the one to do the leaving instead. 

"I've been stupid," John said. 

Sherlock shrugged. It was difficult to disagree with. Less comfortable was the thought that perhaps he had been stupid as well.

"I hurt you," John said. 

Sherlock looked down at the ground. "Yes," he said. "And I hurt you as well, didn't I?"

John breathed out, hard. He did not answer.

Sherlock supposed it was answer enough. 

He stepped forward, put a hesitant trembling hand on John's shoulder. John reached up immediately to clasp it, his grip iron strong. 

"Tell me about Rosie's case," Sherlock said softly, his words barely more than a gust of breath against John's ear. 

"Yeah," John said. "I—yeah. Thank you." 

John did not relax his grip on Sherlock's hand. Sherlock did not pull away. 

He was not sure who moved first. But then they were embracing, holding each other fiercely, John was a warm solid weight against his chest, trembling with emotion. Sherlock shut his eyes, held on.

**Author's Note:**

> Stop by and say hi on [Tumblr.](http://www.discordantwords.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Spoken in Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14508042) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)
  * [[Podfic] The One to Leave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15058346) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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